Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 20, 2016 News
The trial of former Director of Guyana Power and Light, Carvil Duncan – who is accused of stealing over $27M from the power company – was forced into another adjournment, after the prosecutor indicated that she was unprepared.
Police Prosecutor Shellon Jupiter told the court that she was unable to brief herself on the matter because she received the case file on Monday, from initial Prosecutor Bharrat Mangru.
Attorney for Duncan, Charles Ramson Jr. expressed much dissatisfaction at this.
Ramson said that the Prosecutor should have stated that she needed more time to go through the file before calling Lorraine Bancroft, the Corporate Secretary to GPL’s Board of Directors, to the stand.
Nevertheless, the new Prosecutor requested one week to prepare her case. This request was granted by Magistrate Leron Daly and the matter was deferred until July 26.
Bancroft is an attorney by profession. During November 2015, she was employed as Corporate Secretary to GPL’s Board of Directors and tasked with ensuring that decisions made by the board are related to management among other things.
She was led in giving evidence by Magistrate Leron Daly to whom she disclosed the members of the board.
According to Bancroft, during 2015, Winston Brassington was Chairman of the board while Carvil Duncan served as Vice Chairman. Other members of the board, she said, included Mahender Sharma; Komal Ramnauth; Desmond Mohamed and Narvin Persaud.
When asked by the Magistrate to explain the functions of the board, the witness told the court that the board is responsible for keeping the company’s act, setting policies, and also reporting on the activities of the power company.
Bancroft added that prior to 2015, no remuneration was made to members of the board in keeping with the bylaws. She said that the responsibility of establishing director fees is to be done by the shareholders.
“Prior to 2015, to my knowledge, no remuneration fees were established and paid. In February 2015, through the chairman of the board, a cabinet decision on fee structures for state entities was shared with me.”
The witness testified that the cabinet decision listed a number of state entities, including GPL. She added that the decision gave various fee structures depending on whether the entity was small, large or medium, and the purpose of the entity.
Duncan, who is the President of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) and Former Deputy CEO of GPL, Aeshwar Deonarine, were jointly charged with conspiring with each other to steal the money from GPL on separate occasions
However, Deonarine’s name was dropped from the charges against Duncan after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) withdrew the charges against him because he has fled the country.
This was done so that the court could proceed with Duncan’s trial.
Police have since issued a warrant for Deonarine’s arrest. It was previously reported that he was in Canada.
Duncan, 73, of Lot 1977 Lanstead Road, Festival City, Georgetown, is accused of conspiring with another to commit a felony that is to say simple larceny.
It is alleged that between May 7 and May 8, 2015 at Georgetown, Duncan conspired with another (Deonarine) to steal the sum of $27,757,500, property of GPL. It was also alleged that on March 31, 2015, Duncan stole $984, 900 belonging to GPL.
Duncan is currently out on $1M bail.
The two former senior officials are accused of being part of a multi-million-dollar fraud at GPL. The men are alleged to have illegally transferred close to $30M to their personal bank accounts from GPL.
The Government had asked the police to investigate the two senior officials last July. It was reported that the men paid themselves almost $29M without authorization.
In light of investigations, Deonarine was sent on administrative leave.
The discoveries of the suspicious transfers were made by independent auditors who were probing the PetroCaribe Fund, which hold proceeds of oil shipments taken from neighbouring Venezuela.
It was while tracking payments to GPL that auditors unearthed the strange transactions. Deonarine, who had been responsible for administration had reportedly wanted to receive the same level of pay as the then DCEO (Technical), Colin Welch, but his approaches to the Board of Directors were rebuffed.
He had reportedly offered to repay the money, but GPL was supposed to have waited until it was transferred from his US bank account.
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