INVESTIGATIONS into Guyana’s Remigrant Scheme have not been completed allegedly because of sloth in the flow of information from the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to the Auditor-General’s Office.Auditor-General Deodat Sharma told the Guyana Chronicle at the end of January that his office had expected to wrap-up investigations by the end of February. However, two weeks into March, the investigations are still ongoing.

Speaking to this newspaper Saturday, Mr Sharma declined to commit to a new deadline for completion of the investigations.

“I want to ensure that I have all the records before I tell you when,” was all he would say.

Once the relevant documents are passed to the Auditor-General’s Office, work would be completed in a timely manner, Mr Sharma has said. He acknowledged that sloth in delivering the information to his office is partially because the Guyana Revenue Authority has shifted offices, and partially because some of the cases date back more than five years.

That considered, he expressed confidence that investigations at the Auditor-General’s Office would be completed before long. “We are working on it,” Sharma said.

This newspaper’s repeated calls to Commissioner General of the GRA, Mr Khurshid Sattaur, for a comment on the matter have gone unanswered.

The Auditor-General has, to date, forwarded two reports to the Board of the GRA, through which the Authority requested an investigation.

In a prior interview, the Auditor-General declined to comment on the findings of the reports, but disclosed that two major issues the reports highlighted were the falsification of documents and whether or not the persons applying for the benefits offered to remigrants actually did qualify as remigrants.

“There are a few other contentions that the report addressed, but the details of those I cannot disclose,” Mr Sharma added.

He did, however, indicate that the findings of his report would be addressed in his yearend report as Auditor-General, which is usually submitted to the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and is subsequently made public.

Under the remigrant programme, Guyanese who would have resided overseas for more than five years and are returning home to take up residence are entitled to a number of benefits, among which are duty-free waivers for vehicles imported, and tax exemption for household items, once those items had been owned for at least six months in the country where the remigrant was living.

The Guyana Chronicle has been told that a duty-free concession is awarded on condition that the motor vehicle cannot be leased or transferred within three years of registration, and provided that the registration, licence, fitness and insurance are submitted at the GRA for inspection every six months.

However, the investigation stemmed from an alleged duty-free scam, for which four persons were placed before the court.

In regard to the move forward, the Auditor-General’s completed report is expected to be sent to the GRA Board for decisions on the requisite actions to be taken. (Vanessa Narine)