–in relation to alleged conspiracy to defraud the GPF $10M

CHAIRMAN of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Paul Slowe, along with eight other current and retired senior ranks of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) were on Thursday jointly slapped with a fraud charge by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) for an alleged conspiracy to defraud the GPF of some $10M.
In addition to former Assistant Commissioner of Police Slowe; retired Assistant Commissioner Clinton Conway; current Assistant Commissioner Royston Andries-Junor; Assistant Commissioner, Claude Whittaker; Senior Superintendent George Fraser; Superintendent, Mark Gilbert; Assistant Superintendent, Marlon Kellman; Woman Senior Superintendent Marcelene Washington, and retired Senior Superintendent Michael Sutton were also charged.
The matter was called before Senior Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, where the charge of Conspiracy to Defraud was read to the accused. Slowe and Washington did not appear to answer to the charge, as they are presently not within the jurisdiction.

The particulars of the charge allege that Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser, Gilbert, Andries-Junor, Washington, Sutton and Kellman, between March 1, 2019 and July 7, 2020, at the GPF Headquarters, conspired to defraud the Force of $10,056,000 by paying Slowe, Conway, Whittaker, Fraser and Gilbert the said sum, without complying with the proper procedures.
They were not required to enter a plea to the indictable charge, and were released on $100,000 bail each. The charge comes after an investigation by SOCU revealed that former Commissioner of Police Lesie James, unilaterally hired Conway, Whittaker, Gilbert and Fraser, all former GPF officers, to conduct a complete revision of the Force’s Standing Orders in March 2019. SOCU is alleging that James made no contractual agreements, with specifications, of what was to be revised, and the terms of payments, and that neither did he prepare a budget for the service that was being rendered.

SOUGHT NO APPROVAL
Further, SOCU posits that seeing that the payment was in excess of $10M, it should have been budgeted for, and sent to the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) for approval; however, James never sought nor received approval from the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Security nor the NPTAB.
SOCU is contending that the same Standing Orders James hired the ex-officers to revise had already been revised “by highly qualified and competent policy analysts” of the Strategic Planning Unit of the GPF. It was also discovered during the said SOCU investigation that while the enormous sum of money was paid to the former police officers, they are yet to provide the Force with a completed revised Standing Order.

The probe found that from March 2019, payment accounts were prepared upon the instruction of then Head of the Strategic Planning Unit (SPU), Assistant Commissioner Royston Andries-Junor, and when he was transferred to the Force’s public relations department in November 2019, he allegedly instructed his successor to continue making the payments, which was done until February 2020. SOCU revealed that an examination of over 60 payment vouchers showed that 15 of them were signed by Washington and Sutton, collectively, as the Accounting Officer, when they had no authority to do so, as the only accounting officer of the Force at the time was the Permanent Secretary in the then Ministry of Public Security, and that person had given no such permission to make any payment.

Former Police Finance Officers, Washington and Sutton were also charged separately with an additional charge of Misconduct in Public Office. The charge against Sutton read that in his capacity of Finance Officer of the GPF, between July 1, 2019 and July 31, 2019, he wilfully misconducted himself while performing duties by falsely signing seven payment vouchers as the accounting officer, which he was not authorised to do.
The charge read that by doing so, he enabled the retired officers who were hired by James to be paid the $10M, without the approval of Daniella McCalmon, the substantive accounting officer, then Permanent Secretary of the then Ministry of Public Security, and without any reasonable excuse or justification.

LEGALLY BOUNDED
SOCU contends that Washington and Sutton, as former Finance Officers of the GPF, were entrusted to ensure accountability and transparency existed in all financial transactions at the Police Finance office, and as such, they were legally bounded to ensure that the correct financial procedures were followed when payment vouchers are processed.
Further, SOCU contends that they both knew that they were not appointed as accounting officers of the GPF, but yet they falsely signed the payment vouchers as the accounting officers, thereby subverting the authority and signature of the substantive accounting officer.
SOCU’s investigations then discovered that consequent to the actions of Washington and Sutton, Kellman, a staff of the Police Finance Office, entered the information into the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), although the vouchers were not approved and signed by Ms. McCalmon.
SOCU contends that this establishes that Kellman breached the trust placed in him and the honesty policy that surrounds that trust as prior to entering the information into the IFMIS, he was bounded to ensure that the correct financial procedures were followed and therefore his alleged actions display criminal conduct, implicating him in the conspiracy.