GRA should not have withdrawn the charges

Nov 23, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

(Kaieteur News) – Guyana is supposed to have institutions that should, in their operational decisions, be independent of political or extraneous influences. One such institution is the Guyana Revenue Authority.

As a matter of international best practice, tax administration must remain wholly free from political direction in the execution of their core functions of auditing, assessing, enforcing, and interpreting the law. The integrity of a nation’s revenue system depends on impartiality.

While government may set tax policy, they must exercise absolutely no involvement in taxpayer-specific actions: no ordering an audit, no halting an investigation, no influencing an assessment, and no shaping enforcement outcomes. This strict separation preserves fairness and prevents the tax system from becoming a tool for political or personal ends. In every well-governed jurisdiction, neutrality in tax enforcement is a fundamental requirement and the foundation upon which a country’s tax system should be built.

Those foundations trembled on November 6, when the Guyana Revenue Authority announced it was withdrawing charges against the Mohameds in light of the ongoing extradition request. But why should an extradition matter, an entirely foreign proceeding, cause an independent tax boy to withdraw charges intended to recoup billions of dollars in taxes?

The GRA is the guardian of the country’s revenues. It is the housekeeper who must collect what is due and lock the doors against leakage and loss. If ever an institution required operational independence tool, it is the tax authority. For taxes are the quiet glue that holds a society together.

Yet here we are, confronted with the reality that a case involving allegations said to run into billions of dollars has been set aside because another jurisdiction wants the same individuals for different reasons. Guyana may be a small country, but its revenue laws are not small. They impose duties; they promise consequences; they demand seriousness. When a tax case rises to the level of charges, it signals that the alleged breach is not a trifling one. And when such charges are withdrawn, not due to lack of evidence, not due to review of the merits, but because an extradition matter is unfolding elsewhere, then the principle of independence begin to wobble.

Extradition proceedings are important. International cooperation matters. But a tax authority’s duty is not to accommodate distant legal processes; it is to protect the country’s finances. The GRA’s core mandate is to assess, collect, and safeguard revenues for the benefit of all Guyanese. That mandate does not shrink or expand depending on what foreign courts are doing. It is supposed to operate like a lighthouse—steady, immovable, and indifferent to passing storms.

Once the Guyana Revenue Authority files charges under the tax laws, it is under no legal or administrative obligation to withdraw those charges merely to facilitate an extradition committal. Extradition proceedings operate on a completely separate legal track, serving the interests of a foreign jurisdiction, while the GRA’s mandate is strictly domestic: to enforce Guyana’s revenue laws, protect public finances, and pursue alleged tax violations wherever they arise.

Nothing in the Revenue Authority Act requires the GRA to pause, defer, or discontinue its own enforcement actions because another country is pursuing its own case. Any such withdrawal is therefore a matter of choice rather than statutory duty, and in a situation involving allegations of significant lost revenue, that choice inevitably raises questions about whether the Authority maintained the operational neutrality expected of a modern, impartial tax administration.

The decision of November 6 suggested that tax enforcement may be something that can be placed on a side table when other interests—international, diplomatic, or political—come knocking. Yet taxes are not side-table matters. When billions may be involved, the withdrawal of charges should never be an administrative footnote.

To be fair, the GRA may have believed it was acting prudently, perhaps even responsibly, in the face of an extradition request. But prudence must never become a cloak for a tax authority retreating from its own proceedings simply because another jurisdiction has stepped forward. If anything, concurrent actions strengthen a state’s posture—each arm of law enforcement performing its duty, neither compromising the other.

The GRA’s choice on November 6 may have seemed small within the machinery of government, but it cast a long shadow. Independence, once bent, does not easily spring back into shape.

The nation needs reassurance that the GRA will pursue tax enforcement without regard to external pressures or foreign timelines. It needs guarantees that the GRA’s decisions will arise from law, not from convenience. That billions of dollars allegedly owed to the people of Guyana cannot be set aside because another country has raised its hand.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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auditing, enforcing, GRA, tax system

One thought on “GRA should not have withdrawn the charges”

habeeb November 23, 2025 at 11:58 am

Clearly, there is interference by Government- Ali, Jagdeo and Nandlall, the AG.
They are hell bent on having obstacles removed to facilitate the extradition
of Azruddin Mohamed, who, the Speaker Nadir, found it inappropriate to have
Mohamed, the Opposition Leader sworn in. Which of the hands of these
individuals involved ? Both.
And, we all believe GUYANA is and practices DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES ?

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