Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 18, 2017 News
– Chambers schools SOCU on conducting “quality investigation”
The Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) says it will offer no special treatment to files of the Guyana Bank For Trade and Industry (GBTI).
In a letter to the Editor yesterday, Communications Officer of the DPP Chambers, Liz Rahaman, denied that a particular file was being considered three weeks now. The Chambers also took the opportunity to school the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), the police arm that focus on financial crimes, on how to conduct “proper investigations”.
The statement by the DPP Chambers would come hours after Kaieteur News published an article titled “US$500M GBTI contempt charges…3 weeks later, DPP still to pronounce on charges against her lawyer”…
The article said that the DPP, Shalimar Ali-Hack, may find herself in a possible conflict of interest situation, as she was being asked to pronounce on a case involving her lawyer, Robin Stoby. Stoby is also the Chairman of GBTI.
Last month, SOCU, which is tracking down US$500M that the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) handled as far back as 2010, submitted files to the DPP recommending contempt charges against GBTI’s eight directors, including Stoby, the chairman.
This was after the bank and SOCU were locked in a battle over information concerning the GRDB accounts, since February.
SOCU is contending that the bank failed or stalled and gave all kinds of excuses, and even destroyed pertinent records relating to GRDB.
SOCU reportedly argued that other banks complied, but it was finding it hard going with GBTI.
SOCU received four court orders, including one from the High Court, asking that GBTI hand over the information.
In late August, Chief Justice (ag.) Roxanne George-Wiltshire, granted production orders to SOCU, giving the bank a week to hand over certain information. That deadline expired in early September, and the bank was reportedly granted some extra time. However, the deadline elapsed and SOCU prepared files recommending the highly unusual charges of contempt against the directors.
Under tough anti-money laundering laws, once court orders are granted, financial institutions are reportedly bound to provide information. In this case, the monies are not from private accounts, but rather from the US dollar and other accounts of GRDB, a state entity.
The DPP has reportedly retained Stoby to represent her in a case that she was implicated in…the Pradoville Two investigations…she and several other officials in the previous administrations, reportedly received plots of land which investigators said were below market value. How those lands were allocated, among other things, is what SOCU wants to know.
That investigation is about to be wrapped up and should be handed over to the DPP’s office shortly.
In responding to the report in Kaieteur News, the DPP’s Chambers made it clear that it “is a lie” that it has been considering a file for three weeks.
“The DPP’s Office has not had this file for three weeks. The first time the SOCU file in question was received at the DPP’s Chambers was on September 19, 2017. Legal advice was given on September 21, 2017 for further investigations to be conducted. The file was booked out from these Chambers on the said September 21, 2017.”
According to Rahaman, the further investigations as required by the Chambers were conducted and SOCU returned the file to these Chambers on October 12, 2017 for further legal advice.
“The SOCU file is currently engaging the attention of these Chambers. At no time did we have the file for three weeks as was falsely stated in the article.”
With regards to the fact that DPP will have to consider a matter involving her lawyer, the Chambers said that the DPP is not facing any major dilemma in this matter.
“This file will be treated like all other files and advice will be given based on the evidence contained in the file and the relevant law thereto as is done in all files. The DPP has a constitutional mandate under which the work is done at the office,” Rahaman explained.
In fact, the Chambers insisted, SOCU needs to focus on doing quality investigations before sending files to the Chambers for legal advice, because charges are based on “evidence and not on wild recommendations”.
“In doing quality investigations, they must obtain the relevant evidence in relation to the ingredients of the offences they are investigating. After they have obtained the quality evidence, only then should a credible investigator recommend a charge. Once all the evidence is there to support the offence/offences being investigated, charges are recommended.”
According to the DPP Chambers, the Criminal Justice System is receiving assistance from the Governments of Canada and the USA through the Justice Education Society (JES).
“The focus of this is to ensure there are quality investigations done and completed before charges are instituted. The objective of this is to control the backlog that the criminal justice system has been overburdened with for many years now. This overburdening is resulting in the miscarriage of justice.”
The case is bringing sharply into focus the challenges being faced by SOCU, the Police Legal Advisor and the DPP’s Chambers.
Since coming into office in May 2015, the administration has ordered several forensic audits into several state agencies including GRDB, the Central Housing and Planning Authority, Guyana Gold Board, the Guyana Marketing Corporation and the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited.
The reports found several questionable transactions between up to May 2015, under the previous administration – the People’s Progressive Party/Civic.
SOCU, an arm of the police, was handed those files to carry out the investigations.
Several persons, including top GRDB officials, were hauled in for questions. Several of them were charged.
Former President, Bharrat Jagdeo, and several persons, including former Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Roger Luncheon, were also detained.
According to officials, SOCU’s is conducting over 150 separate investigations into financial crimes with at least 40 probes in the NICIL file.
With limited personnel, a number of files have been handed over to the Police Legal Advisor and the DPP, recommending charges.
With regards to the GRDB case, the SOCU investigators were reportedly tracking down where US$500M went. Those monies represented transfers from the Ministry of Finance to pay rice farmer and millers who participated in a lucrative rice-for-oil deal with neighbouring Venezuela.
Farmers and millers, up to 2015, would supply rice, through GRDB.
Under the deal, Guyana received oil, at concessional rates and conditions…Guyana would pay part of the money upfront and the rest over a number of years.
The delayed oil money was what the Ministry of Finance paid over to the GRDB to pay rice farmers and millers.
SOCU is reportedly contending that GRDB used those monies to grant illegal loans to some rice millers and even organizations close to the former ruling party.
GRDB is being investigated also about a number of transfers overseas to a number of banks.
Investigators in the case are also reportedly looking at the linkage between GBTI and the rice board.
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