THE BOARD of Directors of the Guyana Oil Company Limited (GuyOil) has taken a decision to fire its Managing Director, Badrie Persaud, effective February 27.A statement from the oil company noted that the Board along with the Forensic Auditor reviewed the findings of the forensic audit, undertaken by Nigel Hinds Financial Services, for the period November 01, 2011 to May 31, 2015.
According to GuyOil, the findings documented unauthorised and inimical actions taken by Persaud and as such, the Directors at its special Board Meeting on February 18 determined that “it could no longer have any confidence in Mr Persaud’s ability to execute the functions of Managing Director honestly, objectively and efficiently.”
Given the circumstances, the Board decided to terminate Persaud’s service, whose annual leave ended on February 27, with immediate effect and to pay him, in lieu of notice in accordance with the provisions of the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act.
In July 2015, Persaud was sent on 210 days leave while the government continued its forensic audit of the state-owned company. Upon assuming office, the APNU+AFC government found that several persons allegedly fraudulently accessed fuel from the Guyana Oil Company through an arrangement set up by the former PPP administration. The allegations are that numerous private vehicles had received fuel from GuyOil under the tabs agencies like the National Sports Commission.
Chairman of Guyoil, Lance Carberry when asked about this last year had said: “let me say this, GuyOil is a business and there are institutions that have credit accounts with GuyOil and those institutions have specific arrangements. If you have a credit account you have to identify the authorised signatory and in some cases you say which vehicles you are going to send to collect fuel so that the GuyOil station doesn’t have to determine who qualifies or who doesn’t qualify.”
He continued: “First of all the order must be signed by the appropriate signatory and secondly it would state which vehicle is coming, so that is the normal arrangement in terms of the supply of fuel on a credit basis and that still applies, and if there are discrepancies a forensic audit will find out and that audit is presently ongoing.”
However, according to reports persons were identified as having fraudulently accessed fuel from the GuyOil through an arrangement set up by the former administration. Government is continuing its investigation into the racket which has ensnared former government ministries – the Ministry of Home Affairs (now Ministry of Public Security), Ministry of Natural Resources (now a department of the Ministry of the Presidency) and the Ministry of Tourism. The allegations are that numerous private vehicles had received fuel from GuyOil under the tabs of such agencies like the National Sports Commission and the government has the names of persons who took fuel from the company as well as the cash amount attached.