OFFICIALS of the Region Eight Regional Democratic Council (RDC) were on Monday accused by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of colluding with at least four contractors to rob the state of millions of dollars which had been overpaid.

In the absence of the former Regional Executive Officer, Rafel Downes, who was sacked as the accounting officer over his performance and attempts to mislead the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Acting REO Gavin Gounga sought to convince the committee that steps were being taken to recover the millions of dollars that were overpaid to the contractors. But instead, the RDC officials were accused of corruption with open calls made for the police to be called in.

According to the Auditor General’s Report for 2015, the regional administration was still to recover overpayments totalling $12.7M made on 15 contracts during the years 2011 and 2013. It was subsequently noted that two contracts for $139,000 and $242,000 for rehabilitation of the Mahdia Bridge and construction of Campbell Town Nursery School respectively, were cleared by the Audit Office.
On Monday, the REO (ag) told the committee that since the report was compiled, several letters were written by the regional administration requesting that the six contractors repay the monies owed and commitments were made by the contractors to have the funds refunded.

Gounga, who was appointed to the post of REO (ag) with effect from May 22, 2017, said upon entering office he wrote the contractors on June 4 and June 10. Since then, he said two contractors have started to repay.
The contractors indebted to the region have been identified as Curtis Garraway of 111 Miles, Mahdia, who paid $100,000 on Monday; Salim Yusuf of 273 Block X Cornelia Ida, West Coast Demerara, who had paid previously; Nigel Forde of Bartica, Troy Dainty of 111 Miles Mahdia; and Ramuping Wilson of Railway Line, Kitty.

In addition to the letters issued by the acting REO, letters were reportedly issued by Rafel Dowes. While the acting REO did not have those letters, he had responses from four contractors based on the correspondence issued by Downes.
All of the responses issued by the contractors were structured similarly, creating an impression that they had been written by a single individual, and signatures were simply affixed to the documents. They were also dated May 2, 2017. Gounga disclosures had caused an outburst by the PAC members. “Do you see a collusion?” Ali questioned and in response, Gounga said yes.

In addition to Ali, Member of Parliament Jermaine Figueira expressed his disappointment and called for serious action to be taken against those responsible.
“The reoccurrence of the same wording of a letter dated May 2, one would want to conclude, that the RDC seems to be in collusion with some of the contractors and we are being forced to believe that representatives of the state are trying to rob the state,” Figueira said.

Ali added that the evidence was clear. This situation was compounded by the fact that Gounga and team were ill-prepared. They were sent away and are to prepare a detailed statement based on questions that will be supplied by the PAC.