Stabroek Business has learnt that senior Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) officials whose responsibilities included administering the relationship between Fidelity and the Authority had been assigned “an inappropriate range of assignments” that could easily have led to irregularities like the fraud that is currently under investigation. 

According to a source close to the GRA investigation “the structuring of roles related to excise tax administration, intelligence, risk profiling and enforcement violated cardinal principles of internal controls, checks and balances.” And according to the source those responsible for structuring the allocation of sensitive responsibilities “are, at the very least, guilty of managerial incompetence.” 

The source contends that this “lack of effective controls” may even be replicated in the Authority’s multi-million dollar Integrated Tax Information System……