Chairman of the Guyana Gaming Authority, Roysdale Forde, has denied that the body handed over any confidential financial information to Attorney General Basil Williams or the State-owned Guyana Chronicle.
The denial by the Gaming Authority Chairman comes in wake of reports that confidential financial information handed over to the Gaming Authority was turned over to Attorney General Basil Williams, who has since made the documents public by filing them as part of an affidavit.
Chairman of the Guyana Gaming Authority Roysdale Forde
That affidavit was filed on Attorney-at-Law Anil Nandlall, who was on Friday last served with copies of the Affidavit which contained his client’s confidential financial information—information that had been submitted to the Gaming Authority.
Nandlall later accused the Gaming Authority of deliberately turning over the information to the AG, and leaking it to the media — charges now being denied by Forde.
“The Authority is currently reviewing the said application, and can say with surety that it did not hand over any of the information submitted in the licencee’s application by Sleep-In International Hotel and Casino Inc. to the Attorney General, the Attorney General’s Office, or the Guyana National Newspapers Limited (GNNL),” Forde said.
The Sleepin owners had, in April last, applied to the Gaming Authority for certain casino licences, but were denied. The reason proffered for the denial was that the applications did not contain all the requisite information, which led to a similar application being re-submitted on Wednesday last.
It is the confidential financial information which has been submitted along with these applications which the Gaming Authority is being accused of leaking to the state media and Attorney General Basil Williams.
The Gaming Authority Chairman is contending, however, that the authority is currently looking at an application for casino licences made by Sleep-In International Hotel and Casino Inc dated April 5, 2017, and there has been no subsequent applications for casino licences by Sleep-In International Hotel and Casino Inc. post-April 5, 2017, as implied by Nandlall.
“What has been requested of the Directors/Secretary of Sleep-In International Hotel and Casino Inc by the Gaming Authority is the submission of documentation under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Amendment Act.”
The Authority’s Chairman further said he was not in receipt of any letter of complaint from Nandlall concerning the handing over of any documents, nor of any legal proceedings that he (Nandlall) had instituted against the Guyana National Newspapers Limited or the Editor of the Guyana Chronicle.
