April 17, 2019 issue | |
Guyana Focus |
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Integrity a scarce commodity in Guyana |
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Maintaining integrity in one of the most corrupt countries in the Caribbean region is quite a challenging task. That is the unenviable task of Guyana’s reconstituted Integrity Commission which has run into roadblocks trying to get public officials to declare their assets. |
1997. It was largely unsuccessful in carrying out its functions in an environment of massive corruption and a vibrant drug trade. The Commission’s Chairman, Bishop Randolph George, died in 2009 and by 2012 it was non-functional. In June 2017, the Code of Conduct of the Integrity Commission was amended, leading to the resuscitation of the Commission and the appointment of a new Chairman and two new members, with the goal of ensuring that public officials do not use their offices for personal gain in February 2018. |
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Govt corruption portends an ill omen for oil revenues |
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Georgetown – Corruption has become endemic in Guyanese society and unless reforms to tackle the scourge are undertaken, what is happening now will be child’s play compared to when revenues from oil arrive and the corresponding increase in public spending occurs, political analyst Ralph Ramkarran has warned. “Having been integrated as part of our public life, corruption is now difficult to uproot and eradicate. It feeds on the culture, availability of opportunities and weak systems,” he wrote in his Conversation Tree column in the Sunday Stabroek. “In a short while, Guyana will experience an increase in public spending, facilitated by an increase in income that will dwarf that which occurred in the 1980s to the 1990s, which facilitated a vast increase in corruption. Unless political and legislative reforms are carried out now, what is currently going on will be child’s play,” the former two-term Speaker of the National Assembly warned. Ramkarran, a member of the PPP for nearly 50 years, quit it in 2012 after calling out the party on matters of corruption. He had said that corruption was pervasive and the then PPP government needed to do something about it. The PPP’s hierarchy blasted him for his stance which he did not resile from and instead chose to resign. A few months ago, he co-founded the A New and United Guyana political party. In his last weekend column, Ramkarran observed that challenges to transparency in Government have attracted public comment in the past two weeks. He said that apart from these recent matters, allegations of corruption and nepotism are to be expected in the absence of strict and enforceable rules, which have been promised by the government. “These challenges have been occurring since Guyana gained its Independence and will continue until governments take steps to enforce transparency and accountability,” he wrote. The Senior Counsel pointed out that there is clearly no across-the-board political appetite for steps to curb corruption and nepotism. He recalled that the PPP/C came to office in 1992 with one of its major promises being the elimination of corruption. According to Ramkarran, it brought Auditor General’s Reports, which had been lagging for seven years, up to date while it also established a more transparent system of procurement and implemented the Integrity Commission. “However, in the ensuing twenty years, with the vast increase in public and infrastructure spending, corruption escalated to unimaginable proportions in every sphere of society. It became possible to grease palms to speed up or obtain services. Whatever the reason, so sensitive was the PPP/C Government to allegations of corruption, that when I described it as ‘pervasive’ in 2012 and called for additional steps to deal with it, I was severely attacked and forced to resign from the party,” he wrote. He highlighted that the APNU+AFC government came to office in 2015 with an agenda against corruption that was as prominent as that of the PPP/C in 1992. “Within months of its assumption of office, serious questions about its commitment began to emerge. Since no decisive steps have been taken so far to curb corruption and nepotism, it appears that its inclination is to allow these devastatingly negative features of our society to continue unabated,” Ramkarran charged. “Corruption has now become endemic in our society that nothing but a root and branch evisceration of its fundamental cause will have any effect,” he declared. He said that while an attack on the problem on multiple fronts is necessary, one of the driving forces for corruption is Guyana’s ethnically competitive and adversarial political system. “One ethno-political alliance obtains office and gorges itself, then the other gets into office and takes its turn. This is not going to stop until the competition for each to outdo the other is closed off. And it can only be closed off by a new political system,” he said, while adding that it is well known that he has been advocating the implementation of a form of inclusive governance that will result in the major parties sharing the Cabinet in proportion to the votes obtained at the general elections. Ramkarran said that since corruption is such a major issue in Guyanese society, many questions have been asked about the negative impact of such a system of governance on corruption. “The questions are based on the assumptions that neither party is interested in eliminating corruption and that if they are working together in the same government, they will pool efforts to continue corruption and evade detection by maintaining weak and unenforceable rules,” he observed. The former Speaker outlined what could be done to guard against this. He said that constitutional reforms would be necessary to effect the governmental changes that he is advocating for and such reforms should also focus on measures to eliminate corruption since there might be no effective opposition to maintain a focus on the issue. “The answer is to sever executive control of parliament, strengthen parliamentary oversight of the executive, simplify procedures for members or groups of members to table legislation and establish legislative drafting capacity of the Parliament,” he said. “All these can be accomplished by constitutional amendments which provide that ministers of the government shall not be Members of Parliament. Where the executive is not in control of parliament and the electoral system is modified by effectively implementing a mixed first past the post/proportional representation system that has already agreed to but ineffectively implemented, the grip of political parties on their members would be loosened because a substantial number of members would also be answerable to their constituencies. Restructuring of parliament would also be necessary to establish standing committees on corruption, to provide greater administrative support and resources. In this way, parliamentary oversight over corruption, and other matters not currently within its purview would be established,” Ramkarran wrote. “With its own capacity to initiate legislation without having to rely on the government to table legislation, parliament can enact laws to deal with bribery, corruption, nepotism, transparency, accountability and conflict of interest. In addition, where it is considered necessary, it could promulgate codes of conduct in subsidiary form, such as the code of conduct for lawyers being subsidiary to the Legal Practitioners Act. In this way, their violation would attract serious sanctions, not merely a slap on the wrist,” he said. |
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Essequibo businessman, family beaten, terrorized and robbed of millions $ | |
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Nahid Sabar | |
Georgetown – Businessman Nahid Sabar, owner of the N. Sabar Cell Phone Connection and his wife and two sons were returning home from the mosque at around 8:30 pm last Sunday when they were ambushed by seven heavily armed men as they were about to enter their yard at Vilvoorden, Essequibo. The masked men carrying high powered weapons and cutlasses gun butted Sabar to the ground, held a cutlass to his wife’s neck and held onto his two sons. The 28-year-old man said that he was forced to open the padlocks on his door. As he opened the door, his family was forced into the house, but three armed bandits kept guard outside. After a severe beating, which Sabar thought lasted for about five minutes, he said that the bandits demanded $20 million threatening to kill one of his sons unless he followed their instructions. He said they took their orders from someone via cellphone. Describing the "heavy firepower" that the intruders possessed, Sabar said “They had some submachine guns, a shotgun and a long gun – an assault rifle – one had over me. They all had handguns as their side arms… two more had a computer bag with ammo, because when they lash me, ammo fall out the bag.” The businessman explained that during the ordeal he was beaten as he begged the bandits not to harm his family. In fear, Sabar was forced to show the men $7 million in cash he had in his bedroom. They then continued to beat him while demanding that he open the truck parked in his yard. He complied and the bandits carted off about $4 million in iPhones. An alarm was raised and the police were contacted. However, up to Monday morning, Sabar related that no police had visited his home to investigate. |
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Police force silent on fraud findings at SOCU |
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Headquarters of the fraud-embroiled Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU). | |
(Stabroek News) – Up to press time Monday evening, there was still no word from the police force on the submission of a damning report from the recently-concluded audit of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU). Police Commissioner Leslie James had told the media last week Monday that he expected to be in possession of the report later in the week. When contacted by Stabroek News subsequently, he declined to say whether or not he was in possession of the document. “I am going to disclose whether I got it or not… through my PRO [Public Relations Officer],” he had said. When contacted Monday, police PRO Jairam Ramlakhan told the newspaper that James has not said anything to him about the report. Stabroek News was reliably informed that the investigation was completed and the report finalised more than a week ago and that it uncovered serious irregularities, including the falsification of records, and it has recommended immediate transfers of at least two officials and a fraud investigation of several of the discrepancies. Efforts to contact Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan on the findings and the call made by the opposition for him to resign were futile. He is said to still be abroad on official business. It was James who in February ordered the Guyana Police Force (GPF) Audit Department to conduct an audit following claims of grave mismanagement, which included the misuse of its operational fund, made by former SOCU adviser Dr Sam Sittlington and which were later confirmed by staff. Stabroek News was told that the GPF’s Audit Department focused on the years 2016 to 2019, during which time over $52 million is said to have been collected by SOCU from the Ministry of Public Security for its operational fund. The fund is to be used for the payment of SOCU informants, the rental of vehicles for surveillance, the maintenance of the unit’s building, and basic administrative expenses, among other things, but Sittlington as well as others who spoke with the newspaper on the condition of anonymity had voiced concerns about how it was being used. Sources told Stabroek News that during the period under audit, several staff members received sums totalling millions of dollars and while it was claimed in most cases that the money was for intelligence gathering, there was no corroborating documentation. Further, the money paid out to the staff was not far off from what was paid out to informants/sources. In one instance, the examination of payments of more than half a million dollars each to three ranks in one month in 2016 is said to have uncovered receipts that were backdated to make the payouts look legitimate. Stabroek News was also informed that the auditors were hampered by the absence of receipts and the lack of records for some expenditure. There was also evidence of unsigned entries in the financial records, while an official has alleged that their signature was forged. Stabroek News was told that it was found that some of the listed expenditure was concocted. There are reportedly numerous cases where purchases were recorded but when the auditors checked with vendors, including a number of established businesses, it was discovered that SOCU collected quotations but never made the purchases. Also highlighted were irregular transactions between SOCU and a number of businesses. Sources said the auditors found invoices that were duplicated or tampered with, fraudulent double entries, and false entries. SOCU is headed by Assistant Commissioner Sydney James, who is one of more than a dozen persons interviewed by the police force’s auditors. Sydney James is a former army intelligence officer. Sittlington, who was sacked by the UK government for establishing a local branch of his Ireland-based security company, had told Stabroek News that tensions arose between him and the SOCU head when he began to question the spending of funds set aside for the operation of SOCU and requested “certain information” late last year. He said, too, that from his observations, items such as printers, ink, paper and toiletries, which are essential to the smooth functioning of the office and the comfort of those who worked there, were not available. Additionally, he said, investigators were not being given mobile phone credit and there was no internet available. He said he managed to procure a printer for the office but added that for three months, there was no ink before he eventually managed to get the required funds from the British High Commission to purchase it. SOCU officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, had also told the newspaper that in violation of anti-money laundering laws, seized cash was being kept at the unit and in some cases at the Guyana Police Force’s Finance Department. It was explained that the money ought to be in an interest bearing account. The staff said concerns over the state of affairs were raised on numerous occasions but nothing was done. According to Sittlington, late last year he raised the issue with a senior police officer, who promised to take action, but nothing was done. The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has since called for the unit to be shut down and for an independent forensic audit to be conducted towards prosecuting all personnel implicated in wrongdoing. SOCU was established in 2014 by the then PPP administration. Since leaving office in 2015 the party has accused government of interfering in the work of the unit and issuing directives which targeted members of the party. |
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