THE State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA) opened a training series on corruption on Thursday targeting hundreds of law-enforcement recruits and officers to increase their knowledge on the operations of the agency and the role of the police.

The workshop is being held at the Police Officers’ Training Centre on Camp Road, and according to SARA’s attorney, UK-trained Ronald Bostwick, the objective is to equip participants with the knowledge needed to be professionals with integrity.

He explained to the participants that the agency primarily focuses on the civil recovery of assets that were misappropriated by public officials.

Such assets, he said, can be vehicles, land or cash, while the recovery process starts with the investigation and tracing of the items and later recovery of those assets through court procedures.
“Quite recently, there has been a change worldwide towards corruption of public officials,“ Bostwick said.
“Formerly, if you were in a high position, it was more or less cool to do whatever you wanted, protected by the fact that you are always in that position.”

He noted that worldwide, there are a lot of prosecutions and convictions of persons as high as presidents, particularly in Latin America.
Corruption involving high-ranking public officials, he said, is usually sophisticated and makes SARA’s job difficult.

Assets can also be in foreign bank accounts, Bostwick said, and in such situations, gaining access to such information is not easy, since these banks would have their privacy rules and regulations.

“SARA works in conjunction with overseas persons and agencies that are very versed in tracing assets,” he said.
He explained that corruption results in fewer benefits for the population of the country, as less is in the treasury to spend on works to develop citizens’ lives.

“We would have better medical facilities, better roads, better everything, and the essence of our fight is to ensure that what belongs to the people stays with the people,” he said.
To facilitate SARA’s work, Bostwick said there are many orders that can be given through the courts such as disclosure orders, customer information orders, production orders, restraint orders, search and seizure warrants amongst others.

“Ultimately our aim is to get a civil recovery order whereby we will get back the asset to the benefit of the people of Guyana,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) is the enforcement arm with a mandate to charge and prosecute those guilty of financial crimes.