Jagdeo promises non-partisan probe of corrupt officials

…to include APNU/AFC, PPP officials with assets stashed away

People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo has promised that should his party win office at the next elections, it will investigate the ill-gotten gains of corrupt officials, regardless of which party they belong to.
Jagdeo made this commitment at his final press conference for the year, against the backdrop of constitutionally due elections following Government’s fall after a successful no-confidence vote in the National Assembly. He said the next PPP Government would contract a specialised firm to trace the ill-acquired assets of

anyone, regardless of party affiliation.
The former President went on to specify that this included officials from his party’s former Government and also from the current A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition.
“We’ve seen how SOCU [Special Organised Crime Unit] and some of the others behave to go after people. A lot is at stake for (Government). One of the first things we will do, and I’m committing to doing this, is we will hire a company.”
Jagdeo added that this would be “a specialised company to trace all the assets of former Government officials and current ones. When I say former, I mean from the past, our regime, as well as this regime. This is one of the first things we will do when we get into office.”
Jagdeo has for quite some time urged the Government to call in a firm to investigate the assets of all Members of Parliament that may be stashed overseas.
Government has never taken up the offer although the Integrity Commission has been resuscitated. Also, as many as 50 forensic audits were initiated when the Government got into power in 2015. Over $130 million had been spent on these audits.
Having been completed by a number of local audit firms, some were, quite some time ago, handed over to the Police for investigation. Not one has produced a conviction. Several have, however, led to acquittals.
The audits which did result in Police action include probes into the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB); the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) and the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).
Former GRDB General Manager Jagnarine Singh; his former deputy, Madanlall Ramraj; and former GRDB accountant Peter Ramcharran were jointly slapped with 34 charges alleging fraud committed between the years 2011 and 2012. Charges against Ramcharran were withdrawn in 2017, as he was out of the jurisdiction.
Then, prosecution against former GMC General Manager Nizam Hassan and his co-accused, Felicia De Souza-Madramootoo, collapsed after a total of 34 witnesses were called by the prosecution to support the allegations of fraud against the duo. One of the first victims of the audit, Hassan had the allegations dismissed owing to lack of evidence, and he has been reinstated to his job as GMC Chief Executive Officer.
After several months of investigating a case born from the NICIL audit, SOCU officers, back in March 2017, arrested several former Government Ministers and officials, including former President Jagdeo, over the purchase of plots of land at “Pradoville II”, on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD). Opposition parliamentarian Irfaan Ali, who formerly served as Housing Minister, was charged in this matter, which the Opposition insists is politically motivated.