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Dr. Jennifer Westford trial… Two more witnesses testify as trial winds down
Charged Jennifer Westford and Margaret Cummings
As the trial of former Minister of Public Service, Dr. Jennifer Westford, and Ms. Margaret Cummings, who are accused of stealing hundreds of millions dollars from the state, continued yesterday, two more witnesses went into the box to give their evidence in the matter.
The trial is being conducted before Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.
It is alleged that between August 2011 and April 2015, Westford and Cummings, while being employed in the Public Service stole $639,420,000.They have pleaded not guilty to the charge. They are currently out on $4.8M bail each.
Yesterday Louise Armstrong, Personnel Officer at the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) told the court that she is employed at the RDC of Region Eight for over 27 years. When asked by the prosecutor if she is aware if any staff performance training was conducted during the year 2011 and 2015, the witness said no such training was done during those years. She further elaborated that there is no record to show that such training was conducted during that period.
When further asked by the prosecutor how she would know if any training was conducted, the witness told the court that a letter would have had to been sent to the Regional Executive Officer, who would have then send for her, for them to sit and discuss the persons that would be sent to the training.
Armstrong further told the court that if any training was to be held in her region, the training division would have sent out a memo with the calendar with the training programmes.
The second witness that went into the witness box to testify on the behalf of the state was Derrick Persaud; Persaud told the court that he is the Deputy Regional Executive Officer for Region Four.
He added that during the period of 2011 to 2015, he was the Deputy Regional Executive Officer for Region Seven. He added that some of his main functions are to coordinate national events for the region, supervise the heads of department in the region and to look into the budget and the execution of the budget in Region Seven.
The witness when asked by the prosecutor whether he recalled Dr. Jennifer Westford during the years between 2011 and 2015 going to the region to conduct any staff conference, performance review, year review, skilled-based needs assignments, change acceptances workshop, training for scholarship awardees or social activities, told the court that it is possible that activities could have been conducted in the region without him knowing citing that the region is a very big.
He added that he did recall seeing Dr. Westford in the region in 2014 when they were distributing the $10,000 school grant.
Attorney-at-law Dexter Todd who is representing the defendants while cross-examining the witness asked her a series of questions.
The matter was then adjourned by Magistrate Latchman until March 13 for the continuation of the trial.
State Counsel Natasha Backer and Teshana Lake are representing the prosecution.
It was discovered that on 24 occasions, Westford signed memoranda amounting to $639,420,000 and sent them to the Office of the President for approval. Approval was granted and cheques were prepared and encashed by Bank of Guyana.
The monies were requested to carry out various activities throughout the 10 administrative regions.
However, personnel from the various administrative regions were contacted and denied ever receiving the cash. Investigations were carried out but the monies were never recovered.
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