Guyoil Chairman yet to respond to illegal fuel racket reports – Harmon

Government is yet to receive a response from Guyoil Chairman Winston Cosbert, more than one month after receiving the Board of Inquiry (BoI) report into allegations of fuel smuggling at the State-owned oil company.
Prompted for an update on the reports of an illegal fuel racket, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon disclosed that the BoI report was handed over to the Guyoil Chairman for pronouncements.
“It is a fact-finding report, because there were some allegations made in the media about fuel and the fact that fuel was purchased by some company and all of that. So there is a thorough investigation into all of it and the report was handed over and we expect that some pronouncements will be made,” Harmon stated during a post-Cabinet press briefing on Wednesday.
Reports have been surfacing of massive corruption in the fuel sector, costing Guyana at least 0 million in taxes weekly.
According to information in the local media, this countrywide fuel-smuggling racket has been occurring under the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), with prominent figures involved.
Reports are that fishing trawlers from Venezuela have been arriving with the stated intention of doing business with local companies here.
It was reported that while some of them are legitimate, bringing fish or buying fish and other groceries to take back to Venezuela, a number of the vessels are really here to sell fuel.
Reports indicate that many of them have modified their tanks, with some having the capacity to fetch up to 25,000 gallons at any one time. An average of 60 to 70 of these ‘fishing’ vessels are said to be visiting areas along the Demerara River weekly.
Only recently, the High Court had granted an injunction after several local businessmen move to the court following accusations of inducment to smuggle fuel from Venezuela.