Is criminal justice being compromised by having PPP MPs as special prosecutors?

May 01, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Re: “GRA officers, Customs brokers slapped with initial 72 conspiracy, forgery charges,” (Kaieteur News, April 29), brings to a head the long awaited charges that the acting Auditor-General recommended in a report he submitted four months ago, following an extensive and intensive probe of the Polar Beer-Fidelity scam.
But what seems to have shocked many who are following this case, is that no one from Fidelity Investments has been charged!!
Like many others, I do recall President Bharrat Jagdeo ordering a task force that included the Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, to investigate alleged improprieties between the GRA officers, a broker and Fidelity Investment/Kong Inc, but I vaguely recollect thinking the circumstances surrounding which the President took action might have been part of some political retaliation. In fact, at that time, the names of certain prominent individuals once associated with the government or the PPP were being circulated, so now that the charges are being laid, I am somewhat surprised that none of those names are mentioned.
Up to now, no one seems to know for sure who blew the whistle on this case; whether it was Fidelity Investments or someone inside the GRA, but if it was Fidelity, I don’t think we can expect to see charges being instituted against any of its officials. If it was a GRA whistleblower, then the government may have a case against the people identified so far for indictment. What we also don’t know is if the report also calls for anybody from Fidelity to be indicted, and this should be made public if defence attorneys have access to the report.
Nevertheless, we have been told that the basis of the charges was that Fidelity paid duties on soft drinks when in fact it was beer in the container, and so the principal question that needs to be answered, going forward in this case, is whether Fidelity knowingly paid duties on soft drinks when in fact it knew beer was in the container? This might well come out if or when the case goes to trial.
But to shed light on this now, defence attorneys can simply check the receipts – originals and duplicates – detailing the transactions to determine whether this was a one-time activity or an ongoing activity. The reason for this question is, if it were a one-time activity, it sure took a lot of people – 13 from the GRA plus two Customs brokers – to collaborate on for an extremely brief period. Logic says that with this many people, this was an ongoing activity.
So, if Fidelity has receipts showing it has long been paying for soft drinks but receiving beer, and if GRA officers and Customs brokers have copies of receipts to corroborate an ongoing activity, then Fidelity cannot be exculpated! How this scam really worked is what we need to get to the bottom of to determine if justice is being meted out fairly. Looking at the names and pictures of all those people indicted, not one of them looks like they belong to the wealthy class in Guyana, and we all know many wealthy Guyanese whose source of wealth could easily land them in court if they were ever investigated.
Meanwhile, I am in complete agreement with the Polar beer defence team expressing outrage over the appointment of Senior Counsel Bernard De Santos as a special prosecutor in this case. Mr. De Santos, a former Attorney-General and Legal Affairs Minister in the PPP Government, is also a current PPP MP.
There may yet be, but I know of no case precedent in the Caribbean or the Commonwealth where the government ever tapped a legislative member who sits on the government’s side of the bench to handle a criminal case in which the government is the plaintiff, but I do recall a recent case precedent in Guyana of the President appointing attorney Anil Nandlall, a PPP MP, as special prosecutor in the case of the Government versus Buddy Shivraj on fuel smuggling charges brought by the now deceased Joseph O’Lall of the Guyana Energy Authority.
That case dragged on for a couple of years and was eventually dismissed following the President’s firing of O’Lall from his job as head of the GEA and after a new magistrate said something about the case being akin to asking someone to fetch water in a basket. The President’s special prosecutor did not appear too upset about the ruling and nonchalantly promised an appeal, although he knew the man who brought the charges was dead. To date, we are not sure if he ever did, and if not, why not!
By the way Mr. Nandlall, who was identified by Mr. Oliver Hinckson as an emissary of the President at a time when Mr. Hinckson was being accused of making seditious statements, denied he was an emissary but acted in an attorney-client privilege setting. Mr. Hinckson was subsequently remanded to prison where he spent four months before being released on bail.
So when Mr. De Santos says, “I’m sitting on a government bench in Parliament but I am not a member of the People’s Progressive Party,” he has to recognise that he is talking to a politically matured population that knows that MPs are not elected directly by voters but on a party list system and, therefore, must have an allegiance to the party in order to serve. It is, therefore, a slap in the face of intelligent people who long for a working justice system to hear him also claim, “I have no political baggage, and I reject any grandstanding of the lawyers who are claiming that.”
Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the court case involving the millions of dollars stolen by several OP female employees from a President’s fund for underprivileged children. And we also want to know the status of the millions of dollars that were not in the Consolidated Fund when the Finance Minister did an audit of OP, but which millions the President eventually broke silence on by saying he is troubled that it ended up in a Bank of Baroda account. Is the money still at Baroda or is it back in the CF? By the way, how did public money end up in a private bank account in Baroda in the first place?
Emile Mervin

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