Latest update April 14th, 2026 12:38 AM
80 GRA staffers fired last year in corruption clean-up
GRA’s Camp Street Headquarters
The year 2017 has been a tough year for the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) when it came to staffers.
While collections are up, reportedly more than $15B over the previous year, several staffers found themselves without a job at the end of 2017.
As many as 80 staffers were reportedly sent home last year, sources confirmed. The figures could be more, as many as 100 or a tenth of the total number of staff members. However, GRA’s Chief, Commissioner-General Godfrey Statia would not immediately confirm the figures.
GRA is the state agency in charge of collecting taxes and other revenues on behalf of Government. Well-placed sources suggested that the sackings were linked to incidences of wrongdoings.
There were a significant number of cases last year; from smuggling to collusion at the wharves that forced GRA’s Management to send home staffers.
In one notorious case, an entire team posted at a city wharf was removed after attempts were made for containers of scrap metal to be shipped out. No permission was reportedly received yet documents, purportedly to be from GRA, were forged and used to get the containers ready for shipment.
However, somehow GRA got wind of the illegal transaction and moved in, halting the shipments.
A number of persons, including the Customs broker, were arrested.
Last year, a senior enforcement officer was sent home after allegations surfaced that he sent a driver late at night to collect bribes from a Berbice businessman. The angry businessman complained.
There were even cases of staffers colluding with businessmen and other importers to lower values on imported items, thus robbing GRA and the state of precious tax dollars.
Statia who was hired in the latter half of 2016 had vowed to clean house, in an organisation whose name used to be synonymous with bribes and other forms of corruption. GRA has been shifting around staffers and even disbanded the infamous Berbice Anti Smuggling Squad (BASS) which it believed was facilitating smuggling instead of stopping it in the Region Six area.
A number of systems have been tightened with duty free concessions and other tax waivers, once targets of bribery, are coming under more scrutiny.
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