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Former GRDB Accountant’s lawyer wants matters to be consolidated
– To make submissions on March 26
Former Accountant of GRDB, Peter Ramcharran.
Kaieteur News – Attorney-at-law, Nigel Hughes, who is representing former Accountant of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), Peter Ramcharran, is expected to make his submission on March 26, 2021, for his client’s 17 remaining fraud charges to be consolidated.
The charges levelled against him alleged that he fraudulently converted and misappropriated funds. The offences, took place between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2015, at GRDB’s Lot 16-17 Cowan Street, Kingston, Georgetown, headquarters.
On February 11, 2020, Ramcharran was found guilty by Chief Magistrate, Ann McLennan, for omitting $145M from the rice entity’s ledger and was sentenced to three years imprisonment. He is still facing 17 fraud charges before Principal Magistrate, Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus, in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court, which alleged that he kept fraudulent accounts.
Ramcharran’s three-year conviction was one of the first major convictions for the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU), an arm of the Guyana Police Force, which instituted the charges against him. However, weeks after he was sentenced his lawyer filed an appeal against the conviction and Ramcharran was released on $2M High Court bail.
On the last hearing of the matter, Hughes requested for his client’s remaining fraud charges to be consolidated, but the police prosecutor disagreed and asked for the charges to be dealt with individually. As a result, Principal Magistrate, Isaacs-Marcus, set March 26, 2021, for both Hughes and the prosecution to make their submissions.
Kaieteur News had reported that Ramcharran, 40, of Goedverwagting, East Coast Demerara, was slapped with 32 fraud charges. During 2019, he was extradited from Canada to face fraud allegations amounting to $414M. All the charges are related to his role at the GRDB.
The rice entity was responsible for executing a major oil-for-rice deal worth billions of dollars with neighbouring Venezuela. That deal ended suddenly in 2015 by a hostile Venezuela after the Coalition Government came into office. The Board found itself in the spotlight after a forensic audit of that entity revealed among some of the “anomalies” found were loans without proper paperwork or promissory notes. According to information, the former Accountant was heavily implicated in the probe with regards to the six former GRDB Board members, who were also charged.
From about 2009 to 2015, Guyana, under the then administration of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic, had entered a multi-billion-dollar oil-for-rice arrangement, where GRDB was clearing out for farmers. However, millions of dollars of those monies were reportedly siphoned off via third-party arrangements, including rental of ships and other sweetheart deals for a few millers.
The officials, who were charged, are former General Manager of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB,) Jagnarine Singh; former Deputy General Manager of GRDB, 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 of the Ministry of Agriculture, Prema Roopnarine.
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