National procurement board chair has not submitted declarations to Integrity Commission

The Integrity Commission has identified 75 more public officials whom it said have failed to submit declarations of their assets and liabilities and heading what is now the seventh list to be released, is Chairman of the National Procurement & Tender Administration Board, Berkley Wickham.

The latest list was published in yesterday’s edition of the Official Gazette.

Listed under the Ministry of Finance are Wickham along with Bernard Lord, Head of Department; Donna Levi, Head, Bilateral Division; Miguel Choo-Kang of  Head, Regional Planning Division and Denise Desouza, Head, Multilateral Financial Institutions.

Ohene Koama, the Curator (ag) National Art Gallery and Guneshwari Methuram who is the Administrator at Castellani House; Director General (ag) of the  Civil Defence Commission, Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig and the Ethnic Relations Commission’s Remington Eastman  who heads the Media & Campaign Monitoring Unit are also listed.

Keith Lowenfield, the Chief Election Officer/Commissioner of National Registration and Commissioners Robeson Benn, Vincent Alexander and Charles Corbin, all of whom fall under the Guyana Elections Commission were also listed.

William Holder, Head of the Fuel Marking Division at the Guyana Energy Agency, Gladwin Samuels, the Director of Prisons (ag) and Claude E. Housty, the Chairman of the Guyana Rice Development Board are also listed.

Guyana School of Agriculture employees, Brian Greenidge who is the Chief Executive Officer, Dexter Allen who is the Director of Administration and Oscar Glasgow, the Director of Academic Affairs have failed to submit their declaration form.

A total of 38 present and former employees of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) are listed as well.

The 24 present employees are Yusuf Abdul-General, Manager of Factory Operations;Yudi Persaud, Estate Manager, Agriculture Services; Curbette Victorine, Estate Manager-East Demerara Estate; Stacy London Petters, Chief Human Resources Manager; Vemen Walter-Human Resources Manager; Shurwyn Stewart, Human Resources Manager; Dexter Williams, Compensation/Business Development Manager; Natasha Sears, Human Resources Manager; Kim De Freitas, Manager-Programme Support Human Resources and Communication; Rama Persaud, Finance Manager; Marcia Peterkin-Finance Manager; Bisham Chetram, Finance Manager; Bonita Bristol, Finance Manager; Phillip Rampersaud-Finance Manager; Gavin Ramnarain, Head-Agriculture Research; Maxine Cummings-Breeding and Selection Manager; Hector Isadore-Head-Information Systems; Dindyal Williams, Manager-Security Services; Vijay Gobardhan – Factory Operations Manager; Akbar Ally-Factory Manager; Hutton Griffith-Agriculture Manager; Pawan Persaud-Agriculture Manager; Naresh Narine-Agriculture Manager and Lance Niles-Factory Manager.

The former GuySuCo declarants who left during the declaration period and were still required to file a declaration are Tara Persaud-Former Corporate Planner; Karamchand Bramdeo-Former Estate Manager-Skeldon Estate; Devindra Kumar-Former Estate Manager-Wales Estate; Earl John- Former Human Resources Director; Raymond Ferreira- Former Shipping and Logistics Manager; Dexter Cox- Former Marketing Develop-ment Manager (ag); Nathaniel Phoenix- Former Agriculture Manager-Skeldon Estate and Mohamed Zid-Former Agriculture Manager-Rose Hall Estate.

Head of the Tourism Department/ Chairman of GTA, Donald Sinclair; Guyana Water Incorporated’s Nigel Hinds who was the Chairman, Board of Directors; Dr. Richard Van West- Charles-Managing Director; Dwayne Shako- Executive Director, Operations; Aubrey Roberts- Executive Director, Design of Infrastructure; Elvis Jordon- Executive Director, Human Resources Management & Development; Lensworth Blair-Head, Technical Services; Sunildatt Barran, Head, Field Services; Deon Anderson- Head, Water Quality and Lance Mars- Head, Strategic Planning Evaluating & Monitoring; Chief Executive Officer of the Hinterland Electrification Co. Inc. and Colleen Brandford, Administrator of the Human Rights Commission have also failed to declare.

Rounding off the list is six employees of the Institute of Applied Science and Technology. They are Deonarine Jagdeo-Deputy Director, Sewpersaud Manohar-Head of Department, Food and Feed, Mahendra Rampersaud-Head of Depart-ment, Bioprospecting, Rishi Persaud- Head of Department, Biofuels, Randey Fordyce-Head of Department, Analytical and Nonieka Daniels- Head of Department, Accounting.

The Integrity Commission Act requires that every person who is a person in public life, not being a member of the Commission, files a declaration every year on or before June 30th and in cases where such persons cease to be a person in public life, within 30 days from the date on which the person ceases to be a person in public life.

“A declaration under subsection (1) or (2) shall give full, true and complete particulars of the assets and liabilities as on the relevant date, and the income during a period of twelve months immediately prior to the relevant date, of the person filling the declaration (whether the assets were held by that person in his own name or in the name of any other person) and of the spouse and children of such person to the extent to which such person has knowledge of the same,” it further states.

The Commission’s Chairman Kumar Doraisami had announced last December that errant public officials would be given two more months to declare their assets before legal action would be taken. It is not clear if any such action has been taken.

The Integrity Commission Act states that those officials who fail to submit their declarations or submit declarations that are false or incomplete shall be liable, on summary conviction, to “a fine of twenty-five thousand dollars and to imprisonment for a term of not less than six months nor more than one year, and where the offence involves the non-disclosure, by the declarant, of property, which should have been disclosed in the declaration, the magistrate convicting the person shall order the person to make full disclosure of the property within a given time and on failure to comply with the order of the magistrate within the given time, the said offence shall be deemed to be a continuing offence and the person shall be liable to a further fine of ten thousand dollars for each day on which the offence continues.”

Among the errant officials previously listed are parliamentarians and parliamentary staff, government advisors, Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) officials, regional officials and Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation employees.