$400M cheque for immigration equipment payment disappears – Teixeira

The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) will be probing the disappearance of some $400 million that was supposed to be used for the procurement of immigration equipment for the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA).
This issue was first raised in the National Assembly’s Committee of Supply during the consideration of the budget estimates for Citizenship and Immigration Services on the spending of some $711,000,401 on furniture and equipment for 2019.
Governance and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Gail Teixeira, in response to questions, said: “apparently this quantum, which is large, relates to equipment that was ordered to do with upgrading the CJIA immigration passport arrangements…”
She explained that some $650 million of that amount in equipment was ordered from Canadian Bank Note.

“As of today, the majority of those equipment has not arrived in the country and a smaller amount of over $100 million was spent to buy support equipment like computers, scanners and so forth and those have arrived but the larger bulk had not arrived as yet, which has to do with upgrading our capacity to run the airport in a very modern and efficient manner,” Teixeira told the House.
In a subsequent interview with Guyana Times, however, the Governance Minister pointed out that it was later discovered that a cheque of some $400 million that was written for the company was never actually paid.
“There is now some level of proof that part of the money was never paid to the company that was supposed [to] bring in the items… that cheque was held back. If this hadn’t been discovered, one would wonder if this cheque would be divvied among a number of people. So that requires another investigation,” Teixeira told this newspaper.

She went on to explain that “It was checked how come this company hasn’t sent in the stuff that were supposedly bought from them. Then one found this cheque of approximately $400 million after December 31, 2019, that was never submitted [to the company] and the money that would’ve covered that cheque, was never returned to the Consolidated Fund.”
The Governance Minister posited that former Citizenship Minister Winston Felix has to answer as to where the money is.
“So Mr Felix has a lot to answer for… [This] issue came out in Parliament although I did not go into detail because we didn’t know about it[the missing money] at that the time. So this now requires another investigation,” she stated.
This issue of the missing money comes on the heels of another scandal coming out of the Felix-led Citizenship Ministry last week.
In fact, it was Minister Teixeira who disclosed in the House that controversial businessman Larry London received a multimillion-dollar contract under the previous APNU/AFC Administration to print thousands of birth certificates for the Ministry of Citizenship.
The contract was sole-sourced to a Florida-based company called “Universal Procurement Services”, which is now listed as “inactive” in the state’s Division of Corporations database.
London has been the subject of numerous articles, dating as far back to his involvement in the D’Urban Park project, which cost over $1 billion and was shrouded in secrecy. At the time, he was named as the principal of Homestretch Development Incorporated, which coordinated the construction.
Most recently, however, London was revealed to have been appointed by the former Government as Director of Parks, with a salary of $500,000 plus benefits.
Meanwhile, former Minister Felix last Thursday defended the award of the contract to London, a close ally of the coalition, explaining that the then Government continued the decade-long practice to sole source a company to print the birth certificates.
But Teixeira had called out Felix for side-stepping key concerns raised over the award of the contract to London’s company.
She questioned the rationale behind contracting London, who was not only closely linked to the coalition but also at the time employed as ‘Director of Parks’ within the Department of Environment under the same Ministry of the Presidency that had oversight for the Department of Citizenship.
“So the issue is not just about single-sourcing the [contract]. Mr Felix is trying to deflect the issue. It is the fact that here is a person employed by the Government who already has already had many question marks over his activities with D’Urban Park, who was hired in the Government within the same Ministry in which Mr Felix was, given the contract [to print birth certificates]” Teixeira had pointed out.
She went on to say “The corruption aspect of this is the inside trading that was ongoing within APNU/AFC Administration of keeping everything within the ‘family’ and the level of nepotism and cronyism that existed… [Felix] side-stepped completely that this was inside trading – an inside arrangement and there was no accountability. Were all these birth certificates received; were all these accounted for? Those are issues that a full-fledged investigation will have to determine.”
Only Tuesday, Auditor General Deodat Sharma told Guyana Times that his Office is likely to also do a special audit on the contract. (G8)