Latest update January 23rd, 2025 7:40 AM
I cannot deny double charging happened, but i had nothing to do with it – GWI ex-boss
Kaieteur News – Former Managing Director (MD) of the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI), Dr. Richard Van West-Charles said on Monday that he cannot deny if double charging occurred during his tenure at the company but if it did, it had nothing to do with him.
Former CEO of GWI, Dr. Richard Van West-Charles.
Van West-Charles made these comments during his appearance on an online show called “In Perspective” hosted by Brandford Burke.
Burke had asked Van West-Charles to shed some clarity on the allegations made in a recent GWI press conference that “double charging” and fictitious charges on transportation invoices was a practice under his leadership of the company.
In response, Van West-Charles stated, “I can’t say that it doesn’t exist but it has nothing to do with me.”
The ex-GWI MD mentioned too that when he was in charge of operations, there was one suspicious case of double “invoicing.”
“We had discovered a collaboration between somebody in Finance with one of the suppliers in terms of double invoicing, so that did occur,” he said.
When Kaieteur News contacted him yesterday for some added clarity, Van West-Charles reiterated that, based on what was discovered, “it did seem as if there was some collaboration between someone in the Finance Department and a supplier or someone working with the supplier.”
He added that the information was passed on to GWI’s Executive Director of Corporate Services, Nigel Niles, and an internal auditor for investigation. Niles told this newspaper yesterday that he is not sure what Van West-Charles is speaking about, he recalled that there was one case where a supplier submitted invoices twice and that was sorted out last year.
The Corporate Services Director explained that it was not a deliberate move by the supplier but a mix up after it had changed its name. Niles detailed that the supplier had started out supplying GWI under one name but had later changed its name and re-submitted invoices it had already submitted under the old name.
According to Niles, the personnel in GWI’s Finance Department were not aware of the name change and unknowingly accepted the invoices.
After the company realised that it was the same supplier, Niles said a meeting was held with its executives and the matter was sorted out and resolved.
Van West-Charles during his appearance with Burke on the show had also stated that the double invoicing could be an error by suppliers.
“It could be an error on their part submitting twice,” he had told Burke.
During a recent press conference by GWI, its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Shaik Baksh, had stated an internal auditor had found that a middle man used to source a water treatment chemical, sold under the brand name SeaQuest, was double-charging the company. The middleman was allegedly inflating costs in the batching, mixing and transportation of the chemical to different Regions of the country.
Baksh pointed out too that there was the questionable delivery of goods to the various Regions. He had explained one instance where the clerk was signing on behalf of the Regional authorities for the delivery of goods, but the internal auditor could not find any evidence that they were delivered.
Baksh had continued that despite no evidence of delivery being produced, “claims were made and invoices were done for payments to be made.”
That clerk, according Baksh, has since been dismissed from GWI.
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