With oil money, corruption will flow

Aug 07, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Since it was discovered in July 2015 that the then GPL DCEO and a Director had allegedly signed for the transfer of sums from the Petro Caribe fund to their personal accounts – there was a cry of theft and jail them from the public and why not? The Auditors were unearthing some glaring discrepancies committed by the recently dethroned PPP/C. At that time the matters of Aeshwar Deonarine and Carvil Duncan seemed an interesting case. These two Guys had been accused of taking monies that did not belong to them.
Every grandmother and grandfather domiciled in Guyana has taught their siblings and grandchildren that taking something that does not belong to you is called stealing. The Coalition called in the police to investigate- the public felt relief. They opined that finally two persons that were accused of stolen state monies were going to face a trial.
By the time charges were laid on Jan 27th 2016, Deonarine had migrated to Canada. On April 28th 2016 it was reported that two conspiracy charges were withdrawn against Deonarine after an application by police prosecutor Neville Jeffers was granted by chief magistrate, Ann Mclenan.
On July 15th 2016, it was reported that Deonarine’s name was dropped from the charges against Carvil Duncan after the DPP withdrew the charges against him because he had fled the country. This was done so that the court could proceed with Duncan’s trial. In slow but continuous progression, the heat evaporates from Deonarine. On April 29th it was reported that he (Deonarine ) offered to repay the money but GPL was supposed to have waited until it was transferred from his US bank accounts.
Did Deonarine repay the monies to someone? Neville Jeffers and the DPP need to explain how and why charges against Deonarine were dropped leaving Duncan to face the rap when both of them were faced with the same charges. I remember asking a friend how could this happen? His response was; “Every time you watch a monster movie with a few white guys and one black guy the monster always kills the black guy first. So what’s the point, I queried.
He replied;”You stupid, inn the movies the black guy dies first so that the producer doesn’t have to pay him much. Here one type of guy walks away with 27 million and no charges while another type of guy gets a mere million and has to face charges. “Well! that’s funny!”, I exclaimed.
Deonarine, probably presuming that the heat was cooling from him because of something he did or did not do to make the DPP drop the charges against him. He attempted to make the entire issue disappear through an “order of nisi certiorari” against the DPP and police commissioner from a fixed address in the United States. The order had sought to quash the allegation against him claiming they were irrational, unreasonable, erroneous in law and should be considered null and void. Can you believe this guy! Didn’t his grandparents tell him that when you take something that does not belong to you it does not go away that easily?
Lately his ego seemed to have gotten the better of him-he took the bold step of suing Kaieteur News and Minister Patterson for an extravagant one billion dollars for an article entitled, “Govt makes no effort to recover 27 million from former GPL Deputy CEO.” His contention is that the above article makes “the whole world understands that Deonarine had stolen 27 million from GPL or at least took the sum to which he was not entitled to from GPL and had committed a criminal offence”. Sounds like a confession secret from the Play Boy magazine! Note the heading. “Govt makes no effort….”
One would have expected the Govt. to sue KN. Could it be that Deonarine having done something to get the law off his back, saw that heading as an incitement to the authorities to change their action? After all, he did not sue when KN had reported that he had offered to repay in the early stages of the investigation- offering to REPAY is indicative of a confession. Kaieteur News was simply doing its moral duty to the citizens of this country by informing them on the matter of Aeshwar Deonarine and Carvil Duncan as it had unfolded. In doing that duty they (KN) have a right to investigate the substantive evidence supplied in the article warrants the conclusion in the heading.
Apart from the 28 million involving Deonarine and Duncan, a few former GRDB officials were also charged for failing to account for monies from the said Petro Caribe fund. This fund had existed as a result of OIL credit from Venezuela. With our own OIL coming on stream soon, it seems portentous that we have already displayed lack of ability to protect OIL monies.
For this reason a few international anti-corruption experts have been invited to lecture us recently. One of them advised that: “Where there is a culture where it is accepted (corruption) any anti-corruption strategy will fail.”
We cannot deny that we have accepted corruption; it seems to ooze out of every pore from every strata of our society. The expert said; “You have to bust some of the bad guys to send a clear message to people that corruption will not be tolerated, that’s a combination of civil and criminal action.”
This is a concept that the Govt. and the judiciary seem incapable of comprehending. As for the citizens-we are confident we shall see more Deonarines in the future.
Rudolph Singh

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