GRDB’s chief faces deep trouble in billion-dollar fertilizer program

Investigators are continuing its probe of a billion-dollar fertilizer program that was handled under the previous administration by the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC).

A forensic audit report handed in to the Coalition Government had recommended actions against former head of GMC, Nizam Hassan, for at least two sets of transactionsthe fertilizer program and the construction of the entity’s head office in Robb Street. The report had been sent to Cabinet which approved the investigations into the two sets of transactions. The matters were handed to the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) which recently concluded investigations into the building construction and recommended charges against Hassan, an engineer at the Ministry of Agriculture and the contractor. The file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice. With regards to the fertilizer investigations, head of SOCU, Sydney James, confirmed Tuesday that the investigations are still ongoing. While the forensic auditor, Saykar Boodhoo, had been tasked with reviewing records of GMC, an arm of the Ministry of Agriculture, for the period of January 1, 2012 to May 31, 2015, he was given approval to extend the investigations of the GMC’s Fertilizer Account to September 1, 2008. He said that this was necessary due to the lack of information made available by GMC’s senior management. The auditor in his report to Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, on April 11, 2016, complained that Hassan was evasive to questions and not wholly truthful to him in providing answers to his questions and inquiries.

Hassan was last year appointed by the new administration as the General Manager of the all-important Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB), another agency under the Ministry of Agriculture. The auditor flagged and criticized several accounting shortcoming as well as poor work by the accounting firm hired to conduct GMC audits for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014. “My conclusion is that the accounting practice at GMC shows that the General Manager and the Accountant did not provide any meaningful fiduciary responsibility when any payment originated from the Minister of Agriculture or the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture. In other words, GMC’s General Manager and the Accountant acted more like rubber stamps when payments dealt with transactions originating from the Ministry of Agriculture.

(Kaieteurnews.com)