Former Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) accountant, Peter Ramcharran, who is on 38 fraud charges at a city court, will begin facing trials in August and October in the courts of two city magistrates.
Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan will be conducting the trials that are set to begin on August 15th for the 16 charges of fraudulent misappropriation and the five charges of falsification of accounts, while Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus will be dealing with the 17 charges of keeping fraudulent accounts, which will commence on October 22nd.
The misappropriation charges are based on the allegation that Ramcharran, former GRDB General Manager Jagnarine Singh and Agricultural Consultant Madanlall Ramraj fraudulently took or applied to their own use and benefit, or for any other purpose other than the use of GRDB, over $5.1 million, between January 8th, 2010 and January 17th, 2017.
The falsification of accounts charges allege that Ramcharran, while being the accountant of GRDB, omitted to enter over $414 million in the GRDB ledger.
The 17 charges of keeping fraudulent accounts allege that as a member of the GRDB, at Lot 116 to 117 Cowan Street, Kingston, he omitted or concurred in omitting from the organisation’s general ledger, entries related to a total of over $7 million in various periods between January 11th, 2010 and July 17th, 2012.
Based on the findings of an audit, six former GRDB board members were previously charged with failing to record entries for funds amounting to over $250 million in the agency’s general ledger, from 2011 to 2015. They were Singh; Ramraj; former deputy Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture Prema Roopnarine; Business Consultant Badrie Persaud; General Secretary of the Rice Producers Association Dharamkumar Seeraj; and PPP/C parliamentarian Nigel Dharamlall.
