SARA is necessary and it has proven its worth

Jan 13, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Guyana will soon see the formal establishment of a major anti-corruption institution in the form of the State Asset Recovery Agency (SARA). This will be made possible with the passage of its Bill which has been the subject of various consultations. I have observed however that the Bill has been the subject of major criticisms as of recent, particularly by the accounting firm, Ram and McRae Chartered Accountants. The company took several punches at the Bill during its review of the 2017 budget as published by the media. Most, if not all of the firms’ criticisms seem to suggest that the Bill is terribly flawed. However, I do take issue with one of the contentions of the company. It said, “Clive Thomas (proposed director of SARA) would not be a fit and proper person (to spearhead SARA). He can be deemed a politically exposed person under the Money Laundering Act…”
I wish to strongly object to such a stance because even though he is a co-leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), Dr. Thomas was not part of the election campaign mantras for the coalition administration or even for his party which forms part of the coalition. I further believe that regardless of the flaws of the Bill, which can be rectified, SARA serves a crucial role. In fact, the main need for SARA arises since some of our present institutions tasked with detecting stolen monies and properties from the state have proven that they are not functioning as effectively as they should. One case that proves this is that of Omar Shariff which was published by the Kaieteur News on July 31, 2016.
Shariff, was a Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of the Presidency and it is because of the work of SARA that it was discovered that Shariff accumulated billions of dollars, over 18B in fact, and had them lodged in 14 different accounts at local banks. He is now the subject of an ongoing investigation. But this act by Shariff did not occur a month before SARA was established. This “affluent” businessman was storing monies in various accounts way before the election period.
Therefore one begs to question, why an inquiry was not spurred by the local banks, the FIU or even the Central Bank which is supposed to be monitoring local banks for irregular or suspicious transactions. Moreover, did Shariff pay all of his taxes to GRA on the alleged $18B income? How is it that a Permanent Secretary could, without any hassle or alarm from local financial institutions, be able to deposit approximately $18B or US$90M into the system with no questions being raised? The ordinary man would be questioned, or investigated or probably refused trying to deposit US$5000 or GYD$1 million. Had it not been for SARA, would we have ever known about the Omar Shariff case?
At the end of the day, it is because of SARU’s work that we are even aware of the Omar Shariff case that is currently being pursued by the relevant authorities. It is worrying that the investigation into this matter was not a direct result of the institutions mandated to report these activities and protect the financial system from being a conduit of these suspicious transactions.
As the Ram and McRae’s of this society ponder that salient point, I maintain that SARA is necessary and we should do all that is possible to strengthen its role in our society. Resorting to character attacks on the likes of Dr. Thomas; people who are genuinely interested in capturing the political thieves of our time, would not help anyone. And as an aside, if anyone feels that they were handed down a bad decision by SARU or they were not given a chance to due process, there is redress in the courts. I conclude by suggesting that the glaring weaknesses of the Central Bank, the FIU and other agencies, and the availability of audit firms that assist “businessmen” to cover their tracks and even to launder money in Guyana, justify the existence of SARU.
Rustum Bulkan

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