AFC wants GEA thoroughly investigated

Sep 12, 2013 News

…Ram should be awarded the Order of Excellence – Ramjattan

Acknowledging that the National Assembly has not been focusing on state entities with the thoroughness that is required, the Alliance For Change (AFC) has announced plans to move a motion in the National Assembly for an inquiry into the operations of the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA).

Christopher Ram

This is according to Leader of the AFC, Khemraj Ramjattan, who said that he is disgusted by improprieties and illegalities of the governance of GEA unearthed by Chartered Accountant Christopher Ram on his website, chrisram.net.
Ram highlighted that with poor accounting practices and no word on who are members of the Board of Directors, the GEA headed by Mahender Sharma, was last year responsible for a whopping US$350M of the nation’s transactions related to fuel purchases from Venezuela.
Ram stated that while the GEA came into existence in late 1997 and commenced operations in 1998, it was more than 12 years before any accounts were tabled in the National Assembly. The records indicate that audited financial statements and not annual reports were tabled in the National Assembly for years up to 2009.
And, according to the GEA 2012 activities, the audits for the years 2010 and 2011 have been completed, but these have not been tabled.
According to Ramjattan, “I want to concede that indeed our National Assembly has not been dealing with these issues in the thorough manner that we ought to and that is a function of certain incapacities we have in

AFC leader, Khemraj Ramjattan

the field of auditing and accounting.”
Ramjattan admitted, yesterday, that he did not realize in all his years in Parliament that GEA as a corporate state entity was expected to present its annual report to the National Assembly.
“Quite frankly I didn’t realize the reports were not forthcoming…I am not sharp with accounts, although I did recall before the passing of former head of GEA, Joseph O’Lall, that he had promised to bring some documents to blow the whistle on how the PetroCaribe money was being misappropriated…I didn’t get to see those documents because he died shortly after,” he said.
Ramjattan stressed that this experience justifies why Parliament must have support staff of certain expertise to guide Parliamentarians into understanding these corporate entities in relation to governance and manner in which they conduct businesses.
He accepted that sometimes certain technicalities are beyond Parliamentarians. However, with this unearthing by Ram, an inquiry into the operations of GEA is necessary, particularly to educate Parliamentarians of the business of these corporate entities.
Ramjattan, who smiled when asked whether Sharma should be subjected to a polygraph test like other former employees of GEA, said an inquiry would cross examine Sharma and ascertain how he is managing the affairs of GEA.
Ramjattan, an Attorney-at-Law, said that the governance of GEA acted improperly and illegally by not

Mahender Sharma, Head of GEA

submitting the annual reports.
“It is highly improper for Sharma to be the sole person placing signatures on these financial documents,” said Ramjattan.
“They ought to be regarded very suspiciously… No one person should be the scrutineer of himself,” he said.
According to Ramjattan, there is literally a sultanate that dominates the governance of these institutions that control these major bucks (cash).
“They have total control without any checks and balances from independent scrutineers and I want to suspect that is the motivation behind the government not wanting to name the directors of the Board of GEA,” he added.
Ramjattan explained that a Board of Directors is useful for overseeing and speaking out as to the nature of transactions being conducted. The members would be exposed to information on moneys earned and spent. In addition, the members would be answerable to both Parliamentarians and the media.
“To avoid naming members of the board and in that vacuum having the Brassington and others who literally are in an incestuous relationship with each other, create the conditions for a lot of secrecy and it avoids transparency…There will be no sunshine filtering into these current bodies,” he said.
The ‘incestuous relationship’ Ramjattan speaks of, is that Sharma being married to Marcia Nadir-Sharma, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of National Industrial and Commercial Investments Ltd (NICIL), who is second

Marcia Nadir-Sharma

in command to Winston Brassington.
Sharma is also himself on the Board of Directors of the Guyana Power and Light which is also headed by Brassington.
NICIL is the holder of government properties and is not subjected to scrutiny by the National Assembly. Parliamentarians have been trying to change this in order to have Parliament in control over NICIL’s spending.
According to Ramjattan, “We must commend the almost singlehanded effort of Christopher Ram in delving into these issues and unearthing the malgovernance of these institutions and the potential for corruption.”
He believes that Ram should be awarded the Order of Excellence.