Remigrant scheme riddled with corruption–Foreign Affairs Minister

Feb 07, 2016 News

…Says recommendations made to hand it over to other ministers for greater scrutiny
After conducting a series of assessments on the Remigrant Scheme, Foreign Affairs Minister, Carl Greenidge,

Foreign Affairs Minister, Carl Greenidge

has said that the findings clearly show that it was a “site of much corruption.”
Greenidge said that recommendations were already made to Cabinet. He noted that one of the measures proposed was to have the scheme moved to the Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Citizenry for greater scrutiny and management.
Greenidge said, recently, “First off, readers should understand that the scheme is one which attempts to provide incentives by way of tax exemptions on personal effects, tools of trade and other household goods in order to encourage Guyanese to return to their homeland to work. But the system is one that has been cheated and indeed we have looked at the administration of the remigrant scheme with an aim to plugging up all the holes.”
The Foreign Affairs Minister said that the current arrangement is far from being efficient enough to manage the remigrants, ensure that they comply with the laws and inhibit the chances for them to be able to find room to cheat the system.
He continued, “We have conducted an assessment on the system in addition to one that was done before. There were some glaring irregularities coming out of the assessment done and there are a number of recommendations underway to improve the system.”
These recommendations, Greenidge said, are in relation to who should handle the scheme, how the remigrants are to be processed and under what laws the scheme would be managed.
He said, “This came about because we found that there are problems with the existing laws. They just have to be corrected if we are to address the irregularities in the system. In the past, the scheme had been a site of much corruption and while some of the measures with respect to the amendments to the laws will be helpful, the ultimate move would be to send the agency down the road for the Ministry of Citizenship and the Ministry of Public Security to better regulate the system and address the infractions as they are discovered.”
He recalled that the Auditor General’s report for 2014 even highlighted glaring breaches within the remigrant system. Greenidge said that it is unfortunate that the past regime never sought to ensure that the scheme was subjected to some level of serious scrutiny. This is about to change, he said.
“We are going to see a clean up in the system and every remigrant shall join the line of accountability and transparency. The misuse of the system shall not be allowed to continue.”
In his report, Auditor General, Deodat Sharma said that a special investigation was conducted into allegations involving tax exemptions granted on luxury vehicles to remigrants between 2008 and 2013. Sharma said that investigations revealed that 15 remigrants apparently submitted fictitious documents for the importation of luxury vehicles, and also breached the conditions under which the relevant tax exemptions were granted.
He noted that a preliminary report was issued to the Board of Directors of the Guyana Revenue Authority with recommendations for appropriate disciplinary action against culpable officers, as well as taking action to recover taxes. Even today, Sharma said that the position remained the same.