COME JANUARY 25, City Magistrate Fabayo Azore will begin the trial against former Board Director of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL), Carvil Duncan for the charge of conspiracy to steal over $27M from the company.This was disclosed on Monday when the matter was called for report before Magistrate Azore at the Georgetown Magistrate Court where a total of seven witnesses were expected to be called before her to testify.
On January 4, Magistrate Leron Daly had recused herself from the case against Duncan explaining that she had previously dealt with Duncan’s other matter which she dismissed last November.
Daly transferred the matter to Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan for reassignment and the Chief Magistrate later transferred the matter to Magistrate Azore for trial.
Duncan is before the court in relation to a charge where he is accused of conspiring with another to steal $27,757,547, belonging to GPL between May 7 and 8, 2015.
It was reported that Duncan and a former senior GPL official Aeshwar Deonarine were part of a multi-million-dollar fraud at the power company. The men are alleged to have illegally transferred close to $28M to their personal bank accounts from GPL.
The Government had asked the police to investigate Duncan and Deonarine last July. It was reported that the men paid themselves without authorization.
The discovery of the suspicious transfers was made by independent auditors who were probing an account which holds proceeds of oil shipments from Venezuela. It was while tracking payments to GPL that auditors unearthed the strange transactions.
Police issued an arrest warrant for Deonarine after he fled the country.
November last, Duncan was acquitted by Magistrate Daly for stealing $984,900 belonging to GPL on March 31, 2015 after it was ruled that a prima facie case had not been established against him for the offence.
The magistrate upheld a no-case-submission made by Duncan’s attorney Glen Hanoman. During his ruling the magistrate dismissed the charge on the ground that the prosecution’s witnesses failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove the elements of the offence.