A fraud charge was yesterday read against former General Manager of the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) Nizam Hassan and four others, including a former Agriculture Ministry project engineer, for allegedly approving payments for substandard work on the rehabilitation of the company’s Robb Street headquarters.
According to the charge, which was laid after a Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) probe of the findings in a forensic audit, the former ministry engineer, Hanniel Madramootoo, conspired with Hassan and others to approve payments to Constantine Engineering and Construction Services, in which his brother was a director, although the works were “incompetently and incorrectly” done.
Only Hassan, who is the current head of the Guyana Rice Development Board, and Madramootoo’s wife, Felicia De Souza-Madramootoo, were present for the reading of the charge by Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan in Georgetown yesterday. They were not required to plead to the charge and were subsequently granted their release on $250,000 bail each.
