THE magistrate’s proceeding into the trial against six former high-ranking officials of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), is adjourned until July 3, as attorneys for the defendants moved to the High Court to permanently stay the hearing at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court.

The six officials charged and accused of alleged fraudulent omission are: former General Manager of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) Jagnarine Singh; former Deputy General Manager of GRDB and People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) member Madanlall Ramraj; General Secretary of the Rice Producers Association (RPA) and PPP/C Member of Parliament, Dharamkumar Seeraj; former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs and PPP/C Member of Parliament, Nigel Dharamlall; former General Manager of the Guyana Oil Company (GUYOIL) Badrie Persaud; and the Deputy Permanent Secretary Finance in the Ministry of Agriculture, Prema Roopnarine.
They are charged with failing to make a proper entry into a register of a company, with the intent to defraud $362M from the entity’s Republic Bank account.

On Monday, defence attorney Glenn Hanoman told the court that they were yet to receive a ruling for his application made at the High Court for a stay in the matter, and which will halt the proceedings into the case being heard before City Magistrate Leron Daly.
The lawyer had moved to the High Court, after Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) prosecutors failed to hand over forensic audit reports substantiating these allegations.
Although being ordered by the magistrate to present the report to the court, the SOCU prosecution did not do so which could hold the SOCU in contempt of the court, after failing to adhere to the magistrate’s orders.

Attorney Hanoman disclosed that the matter at the High Court would come up on June 6 before Acting Chief Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire, and requested time to report back to the magistrate’s court on the outcome.

Magistrate Daly adjourned the matter until July 3 for report on the High Court’s ruling.
In May, 2017 the six officials made their first appearance in court and were indictably charged; they were released on $500,000 bail each with reporting conditions.
The six denied that in 2011, they omitted to enter some $52M in the GRDB ledger; they also denied that they omitted to enter a sum of $77.3M into the said ledger. Other charges read that between the years 2014 and 2015, the sums of $130M, $9.7M and $145M were respectively omitted from the GRDB register.
The accused all pleaded not guilty to this charge as well.