December 30,2016 Source
Former head of the Citizens Security Programme (CSP) Khemraj Rai has been declared ineligible to be awarded and to participate in any Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) financed contract for the next eight years.
Rai is one of nine firms and individuals involved in Guyanese Projects, who have been sanctioned by the IDB Group’s Sanctions Committee because they were found to have violated the IDB Group’s anti-corruption policies. He was specifically sanctioned for fraudulent and collusive practices and has been debarred for the period August 2016 to August 2024. Rai had not commented on the allegations when they first surfaced here.
The US$19 million CSP which began in 2006 was one of the high-profile programmes of the then PPP/C’s Ministry of Home Affairs aimed particularly at making citizens feel secure. It has since been followed by the US$15 million Citizen Security Strengthening Project (CSSP) which was approved by the IDB in 2015 and launched earlier this year.
The CSSP is being implemented by the Ministry of Public Security, Project Implementation Unit (PIU) and headed by Clement Henry. Minister Khemraj Ramjattan, who has political responsibility for the project, was asked if the government would be pursuing any action against Rai.
“I am not in possession of the investigators file from the IDB and as far as I am aware neither is the Guyana Police Force (GPF). I would greatly appreciate such document being made available to the police who will then forward it to the DPP for a decision to be made about charges. In the absence of that information I can’t make a statement about charges,” Ramjattan said.
His comments are similar to those made by his predecessor Clement Rohee who in 2013 said that the GPF would have to wait for the IDB’s official finding.
Rai led the CSP from its inception and resigned in March 2013 on the grounds of ill-health, however before his resignation in January 2013 he had faced accusations in relation to contracts. Having been alerted to this alleged corrupt practice the Office of Institutional Integrity (OII), which is an independent body within the IDB began conducting an investigation.
According to the IDB website, which list the sanctioned entities, these sanctions were decided through an administrative process that permitted the accused firms and/or individuals to respond to the allegations pursuant to the Sanctions Procedures.
It further explained that sanctions are meant to prevent and deter fraud and corruption in IDB Group-financed activities before explaining that the Sanctions Committee may impose any sanction that it deems to be appropriate under the circumstances, including but not limited to reprimand, conditions on future contracting and debarment.
“Debarred firms are declared ineligible to be awarded and participate in any IDB-financed contract for the periods indicated. Ineligibility may extend to any firm or individual who directly or indirectly controls the debarred firm or any firm which the debarred firm directly or indirectly controls. In the case of a debarred individual, ineligibility may extend to any firm which the debarred individual directly or indirectly controls,” the website explains.
CSP had awarded several contracts for the rehabilitation of various community centres, however one contractor who had tendered for and been awarded contracts in the earlier stages of the programme told Stabroek News in 2013 that he discovered that his credentials had been used to secure contracts without his knowledge.
He claimed that on the advice of an official at CSP he had opened a joint account in March 2012 which he never used but in July 2012 found it to be active with over $7 million deposited and cashed out.
“My contract was up with CSP and so (an official) told me we open this account and he will help me get jobs and we can tender, but then after I got hired on again with CSP for another four months I said I don’t need the account and forgot about it,” he told this newspaper adding that after that period when he went to get his banking affairs in order he found in excess of seven million and nine hundred thousand.
Asked why he did not immediately contact the IDB, he said that “I was trying to figure it all out before I went to them”.
In January of 2015 the IDB was notified of the activity. The contractor stated that prior to contacting the IDB he was approached to rectify paperwork and contracts for jobs he didn’t have any involvement in. He said that he reported all of this to the IDB and in the subsequent months the IDB had sent him copies of the contracts for signature matching. The contractor stated that “they weren’t mine. All the deposits into that account were in my name, but I never did any of them and then the contracts, that wasn’t me.”
Other firms and individuals which have been sanctioned from 2016 include Guyanese Ron Jasairi until 2022 and Siddaharta Rai until 2019 as well as Rai’s companies Sidrai Radiators Works until 2019 and Sidrai Enterprises until 2024.
Two Trinidadian firms executing projects in Guyana have also been debarred from 2016, these are Scientific and Medical Products Limited (SciMed) and Western Scientific Company Limited both for the period 2016 to 2020 for fraudulent practices. Mario Ricard Dell and Edwin K. Mackoon of Trinidad have similar suspensions for the same offence.