Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 06, 2010 News
Millions of dollars in revenue has been lost as the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has unearthed yet another fraud in which scores of containers were believed to have been released without any mandatory checks made by Customs officials.
The Internal Affairs Department has been investigating, sources revealed yesterday. Kaieteur News was told that management at GRA was made aware of the fraud about six weeks ago and it is believed that a number of businesses colluded with staffers to evade paying taxes on the containers.
It was explained that the Customs and Trade Administration has an assessment procedure that would red-flag risky businesses that are shipping containers into the country. This assessment is based on how long a particular business has been shipping and its credibility with GRA.
Additionally, GRA is mandated to make a percentage check on all shipments made into the country. These checks would be red-flagged in the computerized Total Revenue Integrated Processing System (TRIPS) of GRA.
For some reason, a number of containers that should have either been assessed as risky were allowed to leave without any checks.
It was unclear whether there were collusions in the IT Department, which is tasked with recording transactions into TRIPS.
While not going into details, sources said GRA management was alerted to the scam after a number of businesses, on their shipping documents, listed particular goods for which they paid the equivalent taxes. But it was discovered that other goods were actually brought in. Goods that would have attracted a significant amount of taxes.
“For example, a business may list toilet papers but actually had some TVs and other items. Who knows what other things were brought into the country. It is worrisome,” one Customs official said yesterday.
Since its introduction almost four years ago, there have been a number of frauds with TRIPS.
Two years ago, a massive fraud to the tune of $300M was unearthed. A staff from GRA’s IT Department is believed to have manipulated the system that allowed cashiers to pocket monies paid by businesses. An arrest warrant has since been issued for one of the staffers while a court case is underway against others.
Yet earlier this year, another cashier was placed before the courts for taking cash while he was on duty at a city wharf.
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