THE trial of six former high-ranking officials of the Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), on allegations of fraud has been adjourned until September 27, 2018 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 allegedly failing to make a proper entry into a register of a company, with the intent to defraud the sum of $362M from the entity’s Republic Bank account. On Thursday, the trial was yet again stalled before Magistrate Leron Daly and the accused were given another adjournment date.

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 failed 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 the charges read out to them.