GRA grilled on bidding process for disposal of seized vehicles

Mar 29, 2022 News

By Rehanna Ramsay

Kaieteur News – A team from the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), who were brought before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday, faced a series of questions on the bidding procedure used to dispose of seized or want of entry vehicles.

GRA’s Commissioner General, Godfrey Statia.

Want of entry vehicles are those high-end luxury automobiles such as Land Cruisers, Lexus, Hummers, BMWs that come into the country and are seized by the Revenue Authority because of the failure of the importer to pay the hefty tariff those types of vehicles attract.
The vehicles are disposed by GRA through a method of sealed bids. The process involves the said vehicles being placed in the Official Gazette and subsequently advertised if claims were not made for the mandated claim period.
During the hearing on Monday, the PAC took a closer look at how GRA discards the seized vehicles. The team led by GRA’s Commissioner General, Godfrey Statia responded to a number of queries in relation to the automobiles categorised as seized or want of entry vehicles.
PAC member and Public Works Minister, Juan Edghill was the first to highlight his concerns about the bidding process, which was also underlined in the 2017 Auditor General’s (AG) Report. Edghill pointed to an instance where a seized vehicle was not sold to the highest bidder.
His question was premised on the fact that the AG’s report pointed to a loss of revenue amounting to $14.4 million.
The AG report outlined that two vehicles were removed after publication for which 194 bids were received by intended purchasers, resulting in an estimated loss of revenue of $14.4 million.
In regard to this, Edghill queried, “Could the Commissioner General Indicate what were the circumstances that led to the successful bidder not fulfilling their obligations…one of the vehicles was not sold to any of the successful bidders, could you say what led to that?”
In response, Jason Moore, Head of Law Enforcement at GRA told the committee that in some cases, the highest bidders could not be contacted.
“Permit me to highlight that 36 want of entry [vehicles] were gazetted and advertised for disposal. Of the 36 want of entry vehicles, which were gazetted for disposal to the highest bidder; 15 were disposed to the highest bidders, nine of those which were disposed to other individuals because the highest bidder could not have been contacted. Six were disposed and assigned to various government agencies. Three were returned to the tax payers after they paid the required taxes and three remained with us for disposal,” Moore said in a breakdown of the vehicles that were discarded.
He stressed that, “There are cases where the vehicles do not go to the highest bidder because… the person could not be reached or the person is reluctant to come forward.”
Meanwhile, Commissioner General Statia noted instances where the GRA vehicles eventually go to the taxpayer that it was seized from “because the ultimate goal of the authority to prevent loss of revenue.”
He explained that there are cases when persons who import the vehicles make requests for the vehicles to be removed from the list after it is advertised for sale.
Statia noted that those persons eventually come up with taxes owed for clearing the vehicles off of the wharf.
He explained that he usually grants those requests since it is not within the GRA’s mandate to deprive people of their vehicles.
According to Statia, while the transaction is sometimes seen as though it results in loss of revenue, the authority has been doing everything within its power to ensure that this does not occur.
“I think a mountain is being made out of a molehill here because the want of entry vehicles does not account even a percentage of the total revenues collected each year,” Statia said. Statia has in the past repeatedly defended the GRA with regard to the disposal of want of entry vehicles.
In a previous statement, Statia noted that want of entry vehicles or seizures are done, at all times, in a fair, impartial and transparent manner with the Internal and State Auditors playing their respective roles.”
Consequently, he declared that the GRA welcomes any audit by the Auditor General who audits such transactions on a yearly basis, and report his findings to the Public Accounts Committee.

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