Dear Editor,

I REFER to an article titled “Govt. must seriously commit to prosecuting those who abused laws, public resources – Goolsarran”, which appeared in the Kaieteur News of Friday, September 9, 2016.On reading the article, I was struck by the audacity of the writer’s claim that “Anti-corruption advocates have also questioned whether the current Minister of Finance Winston Jordan has truly displayed an interest in seeing Brassington face the full extent of the law.”

I do not know who these “anti-corruption advocates” are. Do they include Anand Goolsarran who, in recent times, has set himself up as a transparency and accountability czar? At least he won’t “put all the blame on the Finance Minister, even though he [the Finance Minister] would have an influential voice at the level of Cabinet.” Should I be grateful for these small gratuities thrown my way?

Two things seem to have escaped these so-called “anti-corruption advocates”. First, I am not a lawyer. Most of my professional life has been devoted to economics and finance. But even without the benefit of substantial legal training, I know that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Mr. Brassington facing the full extent of the law is a function of the outcome of police investigations and the judgment of the Director of Public Prosecutions, not the bleating of the anti-corruption advocates.

This brings me to the second issue. Even though it has been explained in detail repeatedly, these “anti-corruption advocates” appear to be unaware of the process established by Cabinet to deal with the forensic audits.

In March of 2016, a Sub-Committee of Cabinet was appointed, consisting of Hon. Khemraj Ramjattan, Vice President and Minister of Public Security, as Chairman; Hon. Basil Williams, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs; and Hon. Jaipaul Sharma, Minister within the Ministry of Finance. The Sub-Committee was set up to scrutinize the forensic audit reports, to determine which of them dealt mainly with administrative irregularities and which entered the sphere of criminality.

The matters of an administrative nature, addressing issues of weak internal controls and disciplinary action against those at fault, will be forwarded to the respective Boards of Directors. Those of a criminal nature will be sent to the Commissioner of Police for further investigations.
In the specific case of NICIL, the Final Report of the Forensic Audit and Review of the National Industrial and Commercial Investment Limited (NICIL) was submitted to Cabinet on December 7, 2015.

At its meeting of December 22, 2015, Cabinet directed that the Report and work papers of Forensic Auditor Anand Goolsarran be handed over to the Commissioner of Police and the Head of the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) to determine whether there were any acts of criminality committed by those concerned.

On December 28, 2015, Hon. Jaipaul Sharma, who has oversight of the audits, met with the Commissioner of Police and handed over the Comprehensive Report of the Forensic Audit of NICIL, a review of the Comprehensive Report, and the working paper file of the Forensic Auditor. Copies of same were also handed over to Mr. Sydney James, Head, SOCU, on the same day.

Subsequently, Mr. Winston Brassington and Ms. Marcia Nadir-Sharma were both sent on administrative leave to facilitate the transaction audit. Mr. Brassington later resigned and subsequently left the jurisdiction.

In January 2016, a transaction audit was undertaken by the Audit Office of Guyana. However, the Auditor General reported several challenges in accessing and analyzing records, since the records were stored at SOCU’s office. While the Auditor General wanted the records to be returned to NICIL, in order for his auditors to carry out their analysis and investigation, the ongoing investigation by SOCU precluded the agency from releasing the records.

Eighteen (18) issues from the NICIL audit have been identified for further investigation. However, this will translate to a sizeable number of separate investigations.

It should be noted, too, that on June 7, 2016, the Chairman of NICIL’s Board of Directors (of which the Minister of Finance is not a member) was advised to commence examining the Internal Forensic Audit Report’s findings and report on actions taken/to be taken. The Chief Executive Officer of NICIL responded on July 1, 2016, detailing actions taken and those yet to be taken.

The above sequence of events and actions give a synopsis of developments to date, and nail the contention of the anti-corruption advocates that Government is not serious about pursuing those who might have been involved in, or have committed, criminal acts during their time in office.
Regards,

WINSTON JORDAN
Minister of Finance