Former GRDB accountant gets adjournment to continue defence after lawyer exits case
Former Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) accountant Peter Ramcharran, who is on trial for allegedly falsifying the entity’s accounts, was on Monday granted an adjournment to continue leading his defence after a city court heard that he had new representation.
Ramcharran appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan on Monday but neither his attorney, Sase Gunraj, nor the witness who was expected continue testifying as part of his defence, showed up.
Instead, Ramcharran and attorney-atlaw Ronald Daniels appeared at the court and informed the magistrate of the change.
Daniels told the court that Gunraj had removed himself from the matter and would no longer be representing Ramcharran. He said that attorney Nigel Hughes would be taking over as lead counsel for the defence. He also informed that the attorney was not present himself because he was recently informed of the change and that as a result of the switch, he advised the witness, who was supposed to continue his testimony on Monday, not to attend court.
The Chief Magistrate then told the attorney that if the witness is not present for the next scheduled hearing, on January 3rd, she would have to ask the defence to close its case.
Ramcharran is currently being tried by the Chief Magistrate on five charges of falsification of an account. The charges allege that Ramcharran, while being the accountant of the GRDB, omitted to enter a total in excess of $414 million in the GRDB ledger.
In addition to the five charges, the Chief Magistrate is also dealing with 16 misappropriation charges that are based on the allegation that Ramcharran, former GRDB General Manager Jagnarine Singh and Agricultural Consultant Madanlall Ramraj fraudulently took or applied to their own use and benefit, or for any other purpose other than the use of GRDB, over $5.1 million, between January 8th, 2010 and January 17th, 2017.
Additionally, there remain 17 charges of keeping fraudulent accounts against him based on the allegation that as a member of the GRDB, at Lot 116 to 117 Cowan Street, Kingston, he omitted or concurred in omitting from the organisation’s general ledger, entries related to a total of over $7 million in various periods between January 11th, 2010 and July 17th, 2012.