Van West Charles’s future in question over fuel racket

Jan 17, 2019 News

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The Ministry of Communities will be asking the country’s water chief to explain allegations against him that his company is involved in tax fraud.
Following several reports and silence from authorities and Government, the Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan, has finally broken his silence on the issue. Yesterday he announced that he will be asking for explanations.
Dr. Richard Van West Charles is no ordinary executive. He is the Managing Director of the Guyana Water Inc., a state-owned company in charge of billions of dollars.
He is also a director of Atlantic Fuels Inc., a company that is apparently being run from his Meadowbrook, Georgetown home. He is also said to be a senior official of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), which forms a major part of the coalition government.

He was the son-in-law of former President Forbes Burnham.
Atlantic Fuels is being accused of, on at least two occasions, tendering Customs documents that indicate that the price for fuel that came in the name of the company was lower than the actual purchase price.
The documents were reportedly submitted to Customs for the two transactions which occurred between September and October last year.
The Guyana Revenue Authority reportedly lost over $40M because of the transactions.
Dr. Van West Charles was reportedly summoned by GRA last week but there have been no statements from that agency.
After days of attempting to make contact, Minister Bulkan was finally available yesterday.
He said he has noted with “deep concern” the articles in the Kaieteur News accusing Atlantic Fuels, a company of which Dr. Van West Charles is a director and its registered address being the same as his home address, of having defrauded the treasury of millions of dollars in duties on fuel imports.
“My concern arises from Dr. Van West Charles’s position as the Managing Director of the Guyana Water Inc. (GWI), an agency for which I have ministerial responsibility and for which I have to account to the National Assembly for,” the Minister said when contacted.
Bulkan, when questioned, admitted that to date he has not seen any report(s) of Dr. Van West Charles disassociating himself from “these extremely serious and disturbing allegations or rejecting them, neither have I heard directly from Dr. Van West Charles to such effect”.
Bulkan explained that oversight responsibility for the GWI is not only that of the Ministry of Communities but also of its Board of Directors which has statutory responsibility for hiring the Managing Director.
“I am yet to hear from the GWI Board as to if they are in contact with the MD in an effort to ascertain or otherwise the veracity of the allegations which I consider to be necessary for a determination on the suitability of the MD to continue to discharge the functions of the office.”
Bulkan was also critical of Kaieteur News, noting that contrary to the narrative being “painted”, the administration has no tolerance for condoning corruption by public officials.
“I do expect to hear from Dr. Van West Charles rejecting these accusations. That is necessary for the morale within the GWI, and public confidence in the stewardship of this critical public agency,” he said.

Yesterday, senior executive of the Alliance For Change (AFC) and Minister of Public Telecommunications, Cathy Hughes, insisted that the administration is strong against corruption.
“I want to say that this Government had established a Procurement Commission. We have SARU (State Assets Recovery Unit); we have SARA (State Assets Recovery Agency). We have a police force. And our position is that, you know, what would we say? We’re not the ones investigating.”
According to Hughes, she is aware, through the press, that the GRA has already engaged and “therefore, I’d say that we got enough agencies. Let the agencies do the work. We’re not interested in pronouncing on it.
But we feel very strongly about eradicating corruption which has become an epidemic in Guyana. It’s a way of life. Every level in Guyana, there’s some form of corruption and we have to work on that. And that’s why we were so strong about putting a public procurement commission in place. So let these agencies do their job. They must be able to operate independently.”
The fuel trade is a multi-billion-dollar one in Guyana, with spending accounting for a huge chunk of precious foreign currency annually.
With revenues for the country hard to come by, especially as sugar is doing poorly, there were indications also that fuel importers have been colluding with Customs brokers and officers to record lower volumes.
The attention on the troublesome fuel trade has been making media headlines time and time again because of wrongdoings that have been surfacing.
Also a director of Atlantic Fuels is Lear Goring, who was the Debt Recovery Manager of GWI until he was let go because of an undisclosed criminal background.
Goring, according to Customs records, remained in business with his former GWI boss, as they both sat as Directors for Atlantic Fuels.
The fuel import, storage and wholesale licence was controversially approved in late 2015, around the same time that Van West Charles was hired as the new chief of GWI.
There has been intense scrutiny about the procedures.
It emerged that applicants for licences have to show evidence of storage capacity, safety arrangements, environmental permits and a host of other requirements.
At the time of approval, it was unclear whether Atlantic Fuels, a new company, had shown a track record in the fuel business.
What is known is that others were applying and are not succeeding.
Atlantic Fuels received its licence in just over month, a rapid approval compared to the months that others have applied and had to wait.
GRA, to collect its outstanding taxes from the under-invoicing, which is evidenced from Customs records, is likely to examine past shipments of Atlantic Fuels, going back to 2015 or 2016, to determine whether there were other instances of under-invoicing.
GRA then has the option of using the market acquisition prices relative to those shipments and assess Atlantic Fuels with the correct taxes.
GRA itself has reportedly pinpointed a number of its staffers and independent Customs brokers who were complicit in the fuel racket scheme.

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