Former rice board members plead not guilty after fraud charges re-read

The six former Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) members, including two opposition parliamentarians, who were charged with failing to record entries for funds amounting to over $250 million in the agency’s general ledger, were yesterday allowed to plead to the charges. Former GRDB General Manager Jagnarine Singh, former Deputy Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture Prema Roopnarine, agricultural consultant Ricky Ramraj, business consultant Badrie Persaud, General Secretary of the Rice Producers Association and PPP/C MP Dharamkumar Seeraj and PPP/C MP Nigel Dharamlall all pleaded not guilty.

The six defendants were read varying charges during their first court appearance before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan last month.

The first charge, which was read to Singh, Roopnarine, Dharamlall and Ramraj, stated that between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011, at Lot 116 to 117 Cowan Street, Kingston, being members of the GRDB, a body corporate, they omitted or concurred in omitting from the organization’s general ledger any entries particular to the sum of $52,000,000 in the Republic Bank account for its Agriculture Life Skills programme with intent to defraud.

Three other charges of a similar nature were then read to Roopnarine, Persaud, Seeraj, and Ramraj.

The first of these three charges related to the sum of $9,724,082 and the period was between January 1, and December 31, 2013; the second related to the sum of $1,045,000 for the period between January 1, and December 31, 2015; and the third related to the sum of $130,000,000 and the period between January 1 and December 31, 2014.