The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) says that the Kaieteur News is on a mission to taint the image of the authority and that some of its officers are on the payroll of the newspaper, a charge the newspaper yesterday denied.
In a statement yesterday, the authority stated that the media house in an article published in Thursday’s issue of that newspaper, captioned ‘GRA seizes luxury cars in tax evasion probe’, twisted comments made off the record by Commissioner General, Khurshid Sattaur.
The authority noted that there may be persons within its employ who “are not loyal” to the authority and “are being paid by the newspaper to give scoops and insights into highly sensitive and confidential matters”. The statement added that the entity, “believed that those officers of the GRA who leak information are on the payroll of Kaieteur News”.
Editor of the Kaieteur News, Adam Harris, in an invited comment, denied the GRA accusation and told Stabroek News yesterday that the authority’s statement was “useless”. He said that there were many things within the GRA that officers there are willing “to expose” but which the Commissioner General would want to “keep low”. He described Sattaur as displaying an ‘obnoxious behaviour’ when reporters attempt to contact him for comments in relation to news stories.
The GRA in its statement said that an upsurge in the leaking of sensitive and confidential information to the media comes in the wake of the unit’s development of Standard Operating Procedures for disseminating information pertaining to defaulting customers. An investigation into the leaking of information is on-going and the authority stated that all involved will be exposed.
