Paul Slowe, others implicated in Police Force’s $10M fraud -Slowe also accused of sexual assault

May 20, 2021 News

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Kaieteur News-  Nine persons – six of them retired high-ranking policemen and three senior officers still serving the Guyana Police Force (GPF) – have bee

n accused of conspiring to defraud the Force of over $10M. The alleged fraud was uncovered by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU).
One of implicated individuals has been identified as the current Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Retired Assistant Commissioner of Police,

Paul Slowe. Not only is it alleged that he was one of the conspirators in the fraud but he is also being accused of sexually assaul

ting a female Assistant Superintendent who worked with him, on three occasions.

Slowe, according to a police release, sexually assaulted the woman during the months of March and April 2019. She had reported the matter to an Assistant Commissioner who failed to take “proper legal action,” the release added.
Slowe, the Force informed, had left the jurisdiction since an investigation was launched into the matter. He is however required to present himself for questioning to SOCU and at the Gender Based Violence Unit of the Force for fraud and sexual assault, respectively.
Meanwhile, the five other former high-ranking lawmen who are implicated in the fraud matter have been identified as: retired Assistant Commissioner, Clinton Conway; retired Assistant Commissioner, Claude Whittaker; retired Senior Superintendent, Mark Gilbert; retired Senior Superintendent, George Fraser, and retired Senior Superintendent, Michael Sutton.
The three senior ranks still serving the Force who have been implicated are: Assistant Commissioner of Police, Royston Andries-Junor; a former female finance officer and a male officer attached to the police finance office.
Kaieteur News was able to confirm that five of the retired lawmen were arrested yesterday. Director of the Force’s Corporate Communications Unit (CCU), Mark Ramotar, informed media operatives that the men have since been released and are expected to appear in court today.
The alleged fraudsters are being accused of conspiring to defraud the GPF of $10,056,000 to do a complete review of the GPF’s Standing Orders, which had already been reviewed in July 2018 and completed in March 2019 by the Force’s Strategic Planning Unit.
The GPF detailed that even if they had used the cash to review the Standing Orders, Slowe and the others have so far failed to present the evidence that it was completed.
It also p

ointed out that the alleged fraudsters conspired to give themselves a job that clearly should have gone to the National Procurement and Tender Board by law because of the quantity.
Additionally, it was noted that Slowe and retired Assistant Commissioner Conway, are both members of the PSC, which overlooks the GPF as the disciplinary body, and cannot take contracts or enter agreements where they are benefitting from substantial monetary rewards.

Speaking with Kaieteur News yesterday, Conway, while under arrest, disclosed that he was taken to the Brickdam Police Station around 10:00 hrs. yesterday by two SOCU ranks.
“When I reach

ed to the station they told me I was arrested for committing fraud,” he said.
Questioned about his in

volvement in the alleged fraud, Conway said that in March 2019 the then Commissioner of Police, Leslie James, had invited him, Slowe, Whittaker, Fraser and Gilbert to a meeting in the Commissioner of Police’s Conference Room, Eve Leary.
He went on to say that, several other senior police officers were also present.
“We were told that the Executive Leadership Team of the Guyana Police Force decided that myself and persons previously mentioned were selected to revise over 130 woefully outdated Police Standing Orders,” Conway said.
He related that at that time, no salary was mentioned and they all agreed to revise the Standing Orders and started that very day after the meeting ended.
Conway disclosed that they were granted access to the Strategic Management Unit (SMU) to carry out their work. “We did several sessions (reviews) on Tuesday and Fridays,” he recounted.
A few weeks later, according to Conway, Assistant Commissioner, Andries-Junor, was in charge of the SMU and had informed him and others that they will be paid a stipend of $3,000 per hour.
Andries-Junor reportedly had related to Conway and others that the decision to pay them the stipend was made by James, the then Commissioner of Police and the Executive Leadership.

According to Conway, an account was created by a SMU staffer and submitted to the Police Finance Department where he and others uplifted their

payments.
In terms of the work they completed, Conway said that they had reviewed 68 Standing Orders and had saved them in a computer file.
The intention, he said, was that the reviewed Standing Orders would have been forwarded to the Commissioner of Police by Andries-Junor for approval by the Executive Leadership Team.
Conway related too that a female Assistant Superintendent, Nicola Kendall, had informed him and others that they would no longer have access to the SMU because ranks had to use it in preparation for the 2020 general and regional elections.
When COVID-19 struck, he continued, “We were instructed not to do any more work on the Standing Orders until the pandemic is over.”

 

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