Badal is involved in transfer pricing and GRA is ignoring it – Jagdeo claims

Jul 07, 2018 News

Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has accused businessman Robert Badal of defrauding the State via his practice of transfer pricing.
Badal is the owner of Pegasus Hotel, the majority shareholder of Guyana Stockfeeds Limited and the owner of the Popeye’s franchise.
On Thursday, at Jagdeo’s weekly press conference, he said that Badal is given special treatment because of his relationship with the government, “he is a financier.”
Jagdeo said that that must stand to reason why Government did not appeal the ruling last year of the Court of Appeal that reduced government’s share in Guyana Stockfeeds Limited to just seven percent. “They could have taken it to the CCJ (Caribbean Court of Justice).”
He then claimed that Badal is “involved in massive illegal activities in order to defraud the state of its rightful revenues and all that is being ignored.”
Jagdeo said, “He (Badal) engages in transfer pricing.” The Opposition Leader said that Badal has set up a company in Trinidad and Tobago with the same name, Guyana Stockfeeds Limited and he owns 100 percent of the shares…. I will issue a press release on this matter. I do not want to take up too much time at the press conference. But I will show how Popeye’s and all was involved in this (transfer pricing scheme),”
Jagdeo never issued the statement as promised.
But he said, “I know that there are people in the Guyana Revenue Authority who take instructions from the Office of the President and from the Minister of Finance.”
He continued, “Several independent bodies have been receiving instructions from the executive as to how to act. The fuel smuggling that is taking place and is causing a massive leakage to the treasury, people are turning a blind eye to it. They know who the players are and they are still turning a blind eye.”