THE VEHICLE SCAM

June 23, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source

There is at present an investigation into fraud allegations at the Public Service Ministry. The police have reportedly been called in to investigate suspicious transfers of vehicles owned by the government and managed by that Ministry, to private individuals.

I do not expect any political operative to be charged in this matter. I do not expect this to happen for reasons that will become obvious to Guyanese later.

The allegations however deserve some comment because they do raise concerns as to how State property is managed and how financial transactions are conducted.

It is not unusual for government ministries to dispose of assets. If anything, previous governments have allowed unserviceable items and clutter to accumulate.

This happens because there are tedious and time consuming procedures involving the disposal and destruction of such items. Rather than go through these procedures, the items are simply stacked up and left to the elements

There are rules in place that govern how such items can be disposed. Non- compliance with these rules can lead to lead to public malfeasance charges.

If non-compliance involves fraud, the fraud charges can be laid. But as I said do not expect any charges in the case at present involving vehicles belonging to and in the possession of the Public Service Ministry.

It is normal when unused and unserviceable items have to be disposed that these items would be advertised inviting persons to tender for them. It is not certain whether this was done in this instance but it should be too difficult for this to be traced. But if there were no advertisements, it needs to be determined how the beneficiaries were selected. Were they hand-picked? Are they staff of the ministry?

It should also not be too difficult for it to be determined whether any of the cash monies allegedly paid for the vehicles were every paid into the treasury or reflected in some other account. This would help to determine if indeed any money was ever paid for the vehicles, what it was paid and what became of the payments.

Of course it is not normal practice for a vehicle to be sold via the mere issuance of a receipt. There have to be agreements of sale and these agreements have to have witnesses. It should be easy to determine whether this indeed took place.

With these agreements of sale it should have been a fairly straightforward process to transfer the vehicles without the need for any long-running correspondence between the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Public Service Ministry.

Another thing that should be checked is whether between the date when the sale was purported to have taken place to the time when the change of registration was requested, if the vehicles were in use by the Ministry and also if any repairs were done at State expense.

One of the old rackets of selling unserviceable vehicles is for the sale to take place at a low price and then the vehicle is upgraded at government expense. Thus someone may buy a vehicle for $50,000 but before it is uplifted the government spends another $50,000 on it.

This means that the new buyer gets a $100,000 vehicle for half the value. Those investigating should examine if this happened in any of the cases which are now being investigated by the police.