-pose grave risks to country
US sanctions against the Mohameds and Mae Toussaint Jr. Thomas pose grave risks to the country and have shattered its anti-money laundering reputation, according to Charter-ed Accountant and attorney-at-law, Christopher Ram.
In an invited comment to Stabroek News on last Tuesday’s announcement by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Ram yesterday said that it will tarnish the reputation of the country, potentially scaring away both international and domestic investors
A well-known commentator who has had a long-running oil and gas column in Stabroek News, Ram said that the sanctions on Nazar Mohamed and Azruddin Mohamed, who he described as two high-profile members of the business community operating in the gold, quarrying and non-bank Cambio sector, and Mae Toussaint Jr. Thomas, a top public servant/ruling Party executive have “grave implications for the Government and the country which can suffer serious reputational damage”.
He noted that US Ambassador to Guyana, Nicole Theriot subsequently told the Guyana media that such sanctions are reserved for “very serious crimes” and referred to the Russian financing of the war on Ukraine as a parallel. He pointed out that the Ambassador added that there was a preponderance of evidence gathered by her Government over two and a half years.
“In the past, even in the face of compelling accusations, this Administration’s dismissive response is `show us the proof’, rather than carry out its own serious investigations. On this occasion, the Government acted almost immediately: issuing a statement, sending the PPP Executive Member on leave and cancelling the Cambio licence of the Mohameds. And then asks the US authorities to provide information to the Government of Guyana and its tax authorities. The US Government will have to consider whether it can trust this Government with maintaining the confidentiality of such information”, Ram stated.
He added that for all its bravado, the Government must be hugely embarrassed by the announcement. During the 2020 elections campaign, he said that the Mohamed family had a close relationship with the PPP and the senior Mohamed, Nazar still holds office at the local government level for the party.
“Hardly a month has passed since Ms. Thomas became a PPP/C insider, despite having earlier been fingered by the US Administration. With its usual arrogance and secure in the knowledge that no one but itself has or can collect such evidence, the PPP/C has acted on the assumption that it will survive any and all accusations because it has ensured that it controls almost every public agency and regulator in the country”, Ram charged.
He argued that the country’s stellar reputation as compliant with the Anti-Money Laundering/Coun-tering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act is “now shattered while the banking and financial system is exposed. It is sad to see the difficulties the individual has to open a simple bank account and the small company to prove beneficial ownership while others avoid the system completely”.
Ram said that the announcement on Tuesday will tarnish the reputation of the country, “potentially scaring away both international and domestic investors, threatening the stability of the economy and the Guyana dollar, giving impetus to capital flight, loss of confidence in the economy and all the regulators, and validation that corruption is far greater than we are prepared to admit”.
He added: “Who cares about the GDP when it takes a foreign Govern-ment to tell us how incompetently and inadequately the country and its laws are being enforced. The operation of all of them are now compromised and ought to be reviewed. The PPP will never allow that”.
Ram also asserted that this was not an isolated case.
“And let us not for one moment believe that this is an isolated case – it is one in which the US government has an interest, and they could not care who else are similarly engaged, albeit on a smaller scale, once it does not affect that country, or terrorism financing. The money laundering legislation is supposed to deal with tax evasion but then instead of building roads and hospitals, we will need to build prisons”, Ram declared.
He posited that there is another dimension to this corruption which everyone ignores and that is campaign financing and the regulation of political parties.
“Political parties … engage in one form of money laundering or another without any accountability or transparency (they) openly spend hundreds of millions of dollars none of which is accounted for. Donors to the campaign are then rewarded at the expense of the state and the people”, he stated.
Tactic
In the last Sunday Stabroek, former Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran in his column also chided the ruling PPP for always pretending that there was no corruption around and employing the tactic of calling for evidence of such.
“For several decades the Government’s response to allegations of the existence of corruption was: Where’s the evidence? This response served to close down such allegations. Rarely, if ever, are such allegations, when courageously made, referred to the Police. In Guyana, and many other developing countries for that matter, such allegations are treated as political attacks, even if emanating from sympathizers. This denialism and sensitivity to allegations of corruption from anyone, including the Opposition, is so pronounced that those who raise the issue are consigned to a special place in political hell. The lesson has been learnt. No friends or well-wishers of the Government would risk to raise the issue of corruption, even generally, unless they want to risk losing that friendship”, he said.
Ramkarran, who parted ways with the PPP after nearly 50 years following his concern that not enough was being done about corruption, added: “Where’s the evidence? It’s all around for anyone who wants to see. But it’s not the duty of the public to unearth evidence of corruption and present it to the authorities. The Opposition, the public and the press are duty bound to highlight its possibility or potential and it’s for the authorities to investigate. Had they noted the years of chatter in this matter, this embarrassment would have been avoided. But embarrassment is not the only issue. The US Government is clearly, impliedly, sending a message to the Guyana Government that quite apart from any interest the US might have in reducing corruption in the US and in Guyana, a friendly country, that corruption exists on an extensive scale in Guyana and that Guyana ought to do something about it. It is not known whether the Guyana Government will perceive that such a message is being sent and, if so, whether any measures will be taken. Past history suggests the answer”.
He said that the government is experienced enough to understand that in countries like Guyana, even without oil but, moreso, with Guyana’s new found bounty, corruption will expand rapidly and gnaw away at its credentials, unless it takes the issue seriously.
OFAC’s allegations against the Mohameds include defrauding the government here of some US$50 million in taxes from smuggled gold, as well as bribing public officials.
For Toussaint Jr Thomas’s part, it said that she used her office while serving at the Ministry of Home Affairs, to offer benefits to the Mohameds that included contracts, licences for weapons, and passports.
No comment has come from either the Mohameds or Toussaint Jr Thomas.
OFAC designated Azruddin Mohamed and Mohamed’s Enterprise “for being persons who have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery, that is conducted by a foreign person.”
OFAC also designated Nazar Mohamed as being “a foreign person who is or has been a leader or official of Mohamed’s Enterprise, an entity whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 13818, as a result of activities related to Nazar’s tenure.”
As for Toussaint Jr Thomas, OFAC designated her as being “a foreign person who is a current or former government official, or a person acting for or on behalf of such an official, who is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery.”
