The Alliance for Chance (AFC) Saturday evening maintained that Guyana’s Ambassador to Kuwait Dr Shamir Ally was never convicted of a crime.The party said that Dr Ally has denied culpability in charges brought by the US’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the company he was employed with.
According to the AFC, Dr Ally was employed by Acrodyne, a Public Manufacturing Company, for a short period (February 2, 1999 to May 9, 1999) as the Cost Accounting Manager. On May 10, 1999 he was promoted to Controller and he served in this position for fifteen (15) months up to July 10, 2000, the AFC stated.
The party noted that the company’s President, A. Robert Mancuso had asked Ally to help turn around the company as they were preparing to manufacture Digital Television Transmitters for Television Stations, converting from analogue to digital systems.
“Dr. Ally was terminated in July 2000 when the Technical Director Ostroff became the new President. The company was at the time in the midst of a power struggle, falling revenue/income and a depleting labour force,” the AFC claimed.
Two years later in May 2002, the SEC, the United States agency for maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets in-country, served notice on Acrodyne Pty. Ltd. and its former principals of its intention to take civil action.
The charge read that the SEC was accusing former President A. Robert Mancuso and former Chief Financial Officer Ronald R. Lanchoney, along with Controller Shamir Ally, of disseminating false financial information in press releases and Commission filings in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Dr. Ally was first employed at Acrodyne in 1999, the AFC noted.
“The procedures he worked with he had inherited, and he operated under the close supervision of the CFO,” the party claimed.
Dr. Ally was charged jointly with Mancuso and Lanchoney, the party stated, and that instead of proceeding with a long and costly trial, the three professionals were strongly advised by that company’s Attorney-at-Law, Mr. Steven Thomas, to make a deal with the SEC to pay fines without admission of guilt.
Dr. Ally’s vehement denials of any culpability were first contained in correspondences to the Staff Attorney of the SEC’s Central Regional Office, Ms. Dawn Leporati Leget, on May 29, 2002.
“His position today, fourteen (14) years after the incident, remains unchanged. He insists that the company’s annual reports to the SEC were accurate financial results, gleaned from information available from the company’s accounting systems,” the AFC stated.
The party said that Acrodyne used to prepare quarterly reports based on some actual, and some estimated figures. But at year-end they did annual stocktaking for end of year reports which were all audited and forwarded to the SEC. The Quarterly Reports to the SEC were not audited.
“That was Standard Operating Procedure at Acrodyne. There were also no highly computerized systems to offer closer evaluations from one year to the next,” the AFC stated.
In all of his correspondences to the SEC and Acrodyne since 2002, Dr. Ally has said that he “most vehemently disagrees with the sec’s charges”, and that he had agreed to pay the US$10,000 penalty under protest. The CFO also paid a US$10,000 penalty and the company’s President US$50,000.
Dr. Ally also accused the SEC of making him a scapegoat since the Accounting procedures he had worked with he had inherited from his predecessors, and he has consistently iterated that he worked under the close supervision of Mr. Lanchoney, the CFO.
He said that his July 2000 termination ruled out his ability to access the accounting records which would have enabled him to substantially rebut the SEC’s 2002 charge.
The AFC stated that contrary to information carried recently in several sections of the local media claiming that the SEC’s 2002 charges took away his voting rights in the USA, Dr. Ally has proven that the SEC’s final judgment (the US$10,000 penalty) never prohibited him from serving as an Officer or Director of any public company (as it did his erstwhile colleagues), neither did it rescind his voting rights.
Since 2002, Dr. Shamir Ally has continued to function unimpeded at very high levels in and out of the United States, voting at all national elections, City and Town elections.
At Indian Trail, North Carolina, Dr. Shamir Ally was sworn in to serve on six (6) Town Boards and Committees from 2014 to December 2015.
More recently, in February 2015, the North Carolina Secretary of State appointed Dr. Shamir Ally as a Notary Public, the AFC stated.
“We must reiterate that contrary to recent media reports, Dr. Shamir Ally was charged and required to pay a penalty by the SEC. He was not convicted of a crime,” the AFC declared.