Nazar Mohamed

…one employee in gold operations charged

Eron Ferrier, an employee who was attached to Mohamed’s Enterprise for over six years, was charged for robbing the entity of over $120M. Mohammed Enterprise, located with headquarters on Lombard Street, is one of the largest gold dealers in the country.

Ferrier, who supervised Mohamed’s Enterprise Office in Bartica, was brought before the Georgetown Magistrates Courton Wednesday 1, where he pleaded not guilty to the charge that between June 22 and 28, he was given $120M by the company’s Managing Director Nazar Mohamed to purchase gold for the company. However, he fraudulently converted the large sum of money to his own use.

Speaking to media operatives outside of the Court House after the hearing, Mohamed explained that management would often encounter financial hiccups with Ferreira.

“He would often mismanage and misappropriate the company’s money, large sums of money,” Mohamed disclosed. It is understood that these sums amounted to hundreds of millions.

Eron Ferrier

He related that there was one incident in which the defendant lent “large sums of money” without management’s approval.

However, instead of taking the matter to Court, the two entities entered into private agreement where Ferreira was required to repay the misappropriated money.

“We kept him on along with someone else to look over the work he was doing but he corrupted the other person and together they misappropriated the $120M,” Mohamed stated.

In the Court, Ferreira adamantly denied stealing the money but when asked by State Prosecutor Latchmie Rahamat to present the gold which he was entrusted to purchase, the defendant fell silent.

Ferreira subsequently requested bail, which was refused and instead being charged and remanded to prison.

The matter will be called again at the Bartica Magistrate’s Court on June 3.

Mohamed’s Enterprise

Since the gold industry ballooned during the past decade, frauds in the mining sector are occurring with increasing frequency due to the nature of operations on the ground and the inadequacy of human resources supervising and controlling all mining districts. Despite a solid legal framework favorable to the development of mining and sustainable exploitation of other natural resources, the reality on the ground reflects a different situation where monitoring of cash flows becomes a veritable challenge.

Although the mining sector grew from 9% of the GDP in 2009 to a healthy 12.1% in 2013, representing in the same year USD 796.2M, it is apparent that to date no efforts are being made to implement mechanisms necessary to reinforce the national legislations governing the sector