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Former GMC Chief, co-accused freed on fraud charges
Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan yesterday dismissed the matter against former General
Nizam Hassan
Manager (GM) at the Guyana Marketing, Nizam Hassan; and his co-accused Felecia De Souza-Madramootoo, who were charged with conspiring with others to approve payments for low-standard works on the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) building on Robb and Alexander Streets, Georgetown.
The Chief Magistrate in coming to her decision said that she will dismiss the matter on the grounds that most of the prosecution 27 witnesses’ evidence was discredited since they were found to be lying under oath. They gave contradicting evidence in the trial, she said.
The magistrate said there were several instances when the matter had to be adjourned and arrest warrants had to be issued for some of the witnesses to attend court.
Magistrate McLennan added that Police Prosecutor, Inspector Neville Jeffers, failed to prove a case against the defendants.
Hassan, 50, of Good Hope, East Coast Demerara and De Souza-Madramootoo, 34, of Lusignan, East Coast Demerara were represented throughout the trial by Attorney-at-law Glenn Hanoman and Marcel Bobb.
It is alleged that between October 28, 2010 and April 25, 2012, Hassan, the former General Manager at GMC, and De Souza-Madramootoo, conspired with each other to continuously approve payments which were made to contractor of Constantine Engineering and Construction Services Limited, Trinidad and Tobago, for works that were incompetently and incorrectly done with inferior materials to rehabilitate the GMC building, knowing that such works should not have been approved.
Charges were recommended against Hassan and De Souza-Madramootoo after SOCU completed its report into the investigations of the multimillion-dollar construction of the GMC office building.
Felecia De Souza-Madramootoo
A forensic audit report submitted in April 2016 by auditor, Saykar Boodhoo, had flagged the construction, citing several worrying things at GMC, an agency of the Ministry of Agriculture.
The forensic audit report was sent to Cabinet where it was decided that the findings of the report were serious enough to warrant a deeper investigation into not only the construction of the building, but also into the handling of hundreds of millions of dollars of fertilizers.
The forensic audit which triggered the recommendations for the charges would tell a worrying tale of how things were at GMC between January 1, 2012 and May 31, 2015, the time under review.
With regards to the construction of the building, in 2011 a contract was awarded to Constantine Engineering and Construction Services to build a new head office for GMC and the Guyana Shop, which it runs.
A contract in the amount of $23.96M was awarded by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB).
However, the auditor could not review the bid documents, as NPTAB could not find any information that it was involved in the tender process, even though the contract indicated otherwise.
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