… says it will hound anyone who stole State assets

State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU) member, Dr Eric Phillips, said on Friday that the State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA) is not on a witch-hunt to jail any Opposition members but will ensure that all State assets are retrieved from anyone who has stolen.

SARU member Eric Phillips

He stated that whether the assets are stolen by current Government officials or previous officials, it will be recovered, adding that SARA was not being set up to bring criminal charges against anyone but rather that would be the job of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

“We are confusing the perception that a lot of the assets were stolen by people in the last Government, but in reality, the Bill doesn’t care who stole the assets. Whether it is former, previous or current, it doesn’t matter. Once you have stolen State assets, the Bill allows for the recovery,” he stated.

The legislation envisages non-conviction based civil recoveries of property over $10 million with a 12-year restriction period and wide powers will be available to the Agency to be set up under the law to gather information.

A number of persons, including Opposition Leader Bharrat Jadgeo, had publicly registered their disgust over the fact that the Government will be spending taxpayers’ dollars on a unit specially designed for political witch-hunting. Speaking on the issue, former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, contended that it is clear the unit will be used as a weapon to “witch-hunt” the Opposition and any person who opposes the Government.

“What else can be its purpose? After all, the Police Force has these very powers. Why else create a new agency? The answer is simple,” he said, pointing out that the Agency is staffed with persons who are politically affiliated with the Government.

“This organisation does not. It is a political unit masquerading as a law enforcement agency. It is authoritarianism and constitutional tyranny. The first victims will be the PPP leadership and parliamentary Opposition. Its next victims after that will be the ordinary citizens,” Nandlall asserted.

Dr Phillips, however, argued that the Bill is a standard piece of legislation that is used around the world to recover assets belonging to the State. “It is a standard legislation around the world and all we are going after are thieves. It doesn’t matter who they are. More importantly, we are not going to charge them, we just want the assets back. We are not criminally prosecuting anybody that is for the DPP to do base on what the evidence shows” he noted.

He stated that the Bill seeks to create an autonomous agency that would not be reporting to any Minister. He stated that the employments of agents and auditors will all undergo public scrutiny, adding that the Director will be hired by a parliamentary committee that has Opposition members on it.

However, the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has warned the Government against using its one-seat majority in the Parliament to pass the bill, fearing that without broad-based political support, ethnically polarised politics would live on.

The GHRA recommended that the legislation be broadened from only asset recovery to a substantive inclusion of the goals of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC).

However, Phillips maintained that the bill has received wide-spread approval and was reviewed by international agencies, the ABC countries, the attorneys locally and internationally, and a judge in the UK.

“It has a lot of local and international input and it is validated in terms of its powers. We are after civil recovery which means that we are not into convicting people. We want to make sure that the State recovers its assets and it’s not about charging people criminally and putting them in jail,” he said.

He added that due to its broad international scrutiny, analysis and approval in its development, civil recovery has been taken as an alternative but complementary to criminal recovery.

Assets hidden abroad

He added that SARU’s goal is to recover assets hidden outside of Guyana, and so they will be working with foreign jurisdictions “because it is their law and their processes we would have to follow… so it would be in partner with investigations with both countries”.

He stated that part of the bill talks about mutual legal assistance treaties and there are processes involved in many countries that define how this happens.