The Guyana Revenue Authority is appalled at the poor journalistic and unprofessional ethics demonstrated by the Kaieteur News in its coverage of the Public Accounts Committee’s probe of GRA.

“The paper has not been objective in its reporting and has misrepresented the issues discussed at the meeting,” according to a statement from GRA Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur.

“Firstly, The PAC was probing audit queries from the 2006 Auditor General’s Report. These queries were also relevant to the Ministry of Finance of which the GRA is a sub agency.

GRA is concerned that the contents of this meeting were misreported in the press since these sessions are part of a continuous fact finding and accountability process. When the newspaper generalises these sessions by editorialising stories and makes accusations without credible sources, it defeats the purpose of these deliberations.

“It is unclear whether Ms. Bibi Shaddick for instance did question GRA staff pertaining to missing printers as reported, since these items were procured by the National Board of Procurement and Tender Administration; as such GRA could not be responsible for fulfillment of a contract it did not award,” the statement went on.

The Commissioner General, Khurshid Sattaur, was represented by five senior personnel representing Customs and Trade Administration, Tax Operations and Revenue Accounting. GRA cooperated fully with the Auditor General and had provided written responses on all the queries in the 2006 report which were also in the possession of the PAC. These officers are all qualified and were capable and prepared to provide clarifications on the written responses to the audit queries contrary to the Kaieteur News article which suggested that these officers were intimidated and were not capable of answering the questions posed to them.

The PAC has requested further information pertaining to some areas of the report which were not addressed at the session. GRA is in the process of preparing responses to these queries for submission. The GRA has made prompt responses to all queries raised by the Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee over the years.

GRA has continually sought to improve its systems over the years and develop controls to mitigate risk in our systems. This is evident in the implementation of the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), the Total Revenue Integrated Processing System implemented (TRIPS) and the Licence Revenue Office Management Information System (LROMIS), the statement concluded.