THE Board of Directors of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) delivered a blistering rejection of the Alliance for Change’s (AFC) allegations of ‘massive fraud’ at the airport.

In a Kaieteur News report yesterday, under the headline ‘Major skullduggery” at CJIA – AFC’, the party’s Member of Parliament (MP), Cathy Hughes, stated that the AFC recently discovered a “major skullduggery” at CJIA.
According to her, at a party press conference on Thursday at Side Walk Café, “the party has received reports that indicate that fraud is happening at the highest levels of authority in the corporation.” The MP charged that a senior employee who had acted in collusion with an “imposter” to defraud the company is still on the job. She disclosed that that particular employee had identified his “partner in crime” as a contractor to whom large sums of money were made payable. Hughes also divulged that the employee’s attempt at fraud was apparently thwarted when bank officials questioned the imposter. She said that the bank has since blacklisted the CJIA worker and he is no longer allowed to transact any business with that bank.
“In almost every other organisation this employee would have been dismissed immediately but, according to reports reaching the AFC, the employee acts in collusion with senior colleagues in a tight knit circle committing various acts of fraud against the company, including siphoning off building supplies to the construction and renovations of the homes of the same senior officials. Reports also point to a possible abuse of the Duty Free Concession,” Hughes said.
The CJIA’s Board of Directors, in response, has called for the AFC to produce the evidence to back its claims. “The party should directly engage the Board of Directors and/or the police on any alleged evidence it has,” the CJIA Board said.
In a statement it said: “The CJIA is calling on the Alliance For Change (AFC) to make available to the appropriate authorities all evidence it claims to have with regards to the alleged massive fraud at CJIA.”
“It is the opinion of the Board that these malicious allegations may be the work of an aggrieved senior employee who was recently disciplined for a series of misconduct.”
“The aggrieved employee may have exhausted all appeals made to various persons and took this avenue as a last ditch to discredit the Corporation.”
The Board has made it clear that the AFC has to be cautious with its pronouncements and query allegations brought to the party.