President Granger not pleased with corruption court cases being thrown out

Oct 29, 2019 News

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By Trishan Craig

In a podcast hosted by journalist Gordon Moseley, President David Granger was asked for his view on corruption cases making it to the courts and being thrown out for simple reasons. The President said that he is not pleased.

The question was based on the failure of Special Prosecutor, Lawrence Harris, to turn up at court in relation to the charges against the six former high-ranking officials of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB).
These officials were slapped with fraud-related charges for failing to make a proper entry into a register of a company with the intent to defraud $362M from the entity’s Republic Bank account.
Moseley started by reminding the President of the Coalition Government’s promise to weed out corruption on taking up office.
The President stated, “I am against corruption, personally, and I am confident that my government is against corruption… I am not happy to see that but it could be a fault of the prosecutor of which I don’t know the reason for being absent.”
“Some investigators might be delinquent in the taking of evidence and a bad case is taken to the court and that case is being thrown out.”
Moreover, President Granger said that despite the establishment of the States Assets Recovery Agency (SARA) and the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), they have been experiencing some difficulties in investigations and in finding evidence.
He added that naturally, criminals do not leave evidence lying about. Documents are destroyed and files are removed. Persons who were complicit in crimes concealed evidence or refused to testify.
President Granger said that this has not happened only in government matters but also in matters involving persons of the military force.
“There is no point trying to suspend, dismiss or interdict officers without evidence. We have had some successes and some persons have resigned.
Once re-elected in the upcoming elections, the President stated that his government will continue to press for better investigative tools to ensure persons are placed before the courts and prosecuted.
“There is no point in rushing the court because then persons are able to escape because of poor collection of evidence or the file has disappeared. It is possible that some of the cases are not well prepared and we must do better in that regard.”
He said that if there is a very junior prosecutor coming out from the police force that individual must be properly trained and the relevant agencies should employ the best persons to be police legal advisers and prosecutors.
In the case of military personnel going rogue, the President indicated that they will be punished in accordance with the Defence Act.
The corruption case that was thrown out by Senior Magistrate Leron Daly after the special prosecutor failed to turn up to court, involved former GRDB General Manager, Jagnarine Singh; former Deputy General Manager, Madanlall Ramraj; General Secretary of the Rice Producers Association (RPA), Dharamkumar Seeraj; former Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, Nigel Dharamlall; former General Manager of the Guyana Oil Company, Badrie Persaud, and the Deputy Permanent Secretary (Finance), Ministry of Agriculture, Prema Roopnarine.
The charges alleged that between January 1 and December 31, 2012, with intent to defraud, they omitted or concurred to be omitted $77.3M from the general ledger of the GRDB’s Republic Bank account.
Similarly, between January 1 and December 31 of the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 with intent to defraud the entity, they omitted or concurred to be omitted from the said Republic Bank account, $9.7M, $130M and $145M for the three respective years. They all had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In August 2019, following the dismissal of the first charge against the officials, the defence counsel had asked for the other charges to also be dismissed.
The charge had alleged that in 2011 at 166 -177 Cowan Street, Kingston, Georgetown, they omitted to enter some $52M in the GRDB ledger.
Special Prosecutor Harris, who is working for SOCU, was given time to be briefed by SOCU and report to the court whether they are proceeding with the charges or withdrawing them against the defendants.
The Special Prosecutor failed to return to the court and an order was made by the magistrate for a court notice to be sent to him.
On October 2, last, which was the adjournment date after the court notice, the prosecutor did show up, however, his report remained the same – that he had to be briefed by SOCU.
Another adjournment was given and again the prosecutor did not show up. According to information, the prosecutor did not show up on three different occasions and the defence counsel kept fighting for a dismissal of the charges.
Magistrate Daly later upheld their fight and dismissed the charges against the officials.
GRDB is the authority charged with overseeing the rice industry throughout the country. Upon entering Government in May 2015, the David Granger-led administration immediately ordered a number of forensic audits to determine the health of the state agencies.
With regards to the GRDB report, it was noted that over a three to four-year period, more than US$500M from the PetroCaribe proceeds (Venezuela rice-for-oil deal) would have passed through the accounts of the entity.
Among some of the “anomalies” found were loans without proper paperwork or promissory notes. There were other instances of persons in the agency using GRDB’s money to trade in foreign currency.
The losses for the Government would have been significant, especially if the money was traded for less than it should have been.
The Auditor General and the forensic audit reports all pointed to severe deficiencies in the manner the monies of the state have been handled by the entities.

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