Latest update December 4th, 2024 2:40 AM
GRA mulls boosting up armory to confront armed smugglers
Commissioner of Police (ag) Seelall Persaud
Commissioner General of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) Khurshid Sattaur has vowed to ensure that his staff is properly prepared to deal with the heavy firepower of smugglers in the future.
His commitment comes in the wake of last week Wednesday’s armed confrontation between officers of the GRA’s Law Enforcement and Investigation Division (LEID) and well known chicken smugglers at Dundee, Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara.
During the confrontation, the GRA’s officers were forced to run and hide under a hail of bullets fired from assault rifles, as their weapons were no match for the smugglers.
Speaking with this newspaper on Monday, Sattaur said that having recognized that the smugglers are using high-powered weapons to facilitate their activities, the question of boosting up the GRA’s level of arms and ammunition is being seriously considered.
“I intend to go to the highest level to ensure that my staff is secured,” the Commissioner General told this newspaper.
Sattaur also intends to work closely with other law enforcement agencies such as the Guyana Defence Force and Guyana Police Force, which are part of an inter-agency task force set up earlier this year to tackle smuggling.
However, this collaboration will certainly need some strengthening, following what appeared to be a fallout between the GRA and the Guyana Police Force with respect to last Wednesday’s operation which netted three bus loads of smuggled chicken.
While the GRA is tasked with tying up the smuggling aspect of the incident, the police are mandated to investigate the exchange of gunfire between the smugglers and the GRA’s Law Enforcement and Investigation Division, as well as the wounding of a resident.
But the police sparked a row by publicly accusing the GRA officers of stymieing the investigations into the shooting by their non-submission of statements.
Although the matter was subsequently sorted out, the accusation did not go down well with the GRA.
The GRA responded by describing the police statement as wicked, malicious and atrocious, and called for its retraction.
Only last February both the GRA and the Guyana Police Force, along with the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit, the Guyana Energy Agency and the Guyana Defence Force, signed a Memorandum Of Understanding, to facilitate more collaboration to counter fuel smuggling and other contraband.
At that signing Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, who is Chairman of the Task Force on Fuel Smuggling and Contraband, said that it helps and contributes, to a large extent, to the strengthening of cooperation and collaboration amongst the various constituency signatories to the MOU.
GRA Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur
He said much has been achieved since the Task Force was established, the most important being the enhanced collaborating and cooperating among the agencies, in which they can act in unison under its purview.
But despite this position, the row between the GRA and the police went up another notch, with officials from both sides accusing each other of corruption.
A senior police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, is convinced that the GRA officials are usually involved in “shaking down” suspected smugglers for huge sums of money.
“They usually intercept smugglers and demand huge amounts to forego prosecution,” the officer said.
But a GRA official retorted by saying that the same could be said about the police.
“It is no secret that the police are corrupt,” the GRA official stated. He explained that it is the belief of the GRA hierarchy that the smuggler who was intercepted by its officers last Wednesday, has close links to members of the Police Force, who would tip him off whenever the GRA law enforcement team is planning a crackdown on his operations.
The police however have already instituted charges against the suspect Harilall Motielall, 53, popularly called Jinga Harry, for discharging a loaded firearm with intent, while the GRA is still to do so with regards to the smuggled chicken.
Commissioner General Sattaur has insisted that his agency will relentlessly pursue smuggling with a view to bringing the perpetrators to justice.
In April last, the GRA reported that it had seized over $30M in smuggled goods during the first quarter of 2014.
“We are not going to spare smugglers. The next time I go out there with my guys, they are going to go out there fully prepared to deal with anything that we come up with,” the GRA Commissioner General declared.
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