Georgetown: A senior Guyana Police Force (GPF) officer has been sent to Italy to undergo training in assets recovery, Minister of State Joseph Harmon revealed recently.
Italy is providing the training through the Caricom Secretariat. The training programme is dubbed “illicit economy and financial flows investigations and Assets recovery”.
The programme is scheduled to run from the July 6-17 in Rome Italy, and will be fully funded by the Italian Government. Guyana will be represented at that forum by Superintendent Hugh Denhert. The programme will offer a wide range of training on mechanisms on how the illicit economy works and the ways in which one can go about recovering assets which belong to the State beyond borders extra jurisdictionally. It will be held at the Police training centre for 11 days of intense activities.
Meanwhile, Harmon said that Government has been overwhelmed by the response from foreign entities and Guyanese living abroad, who have volunteered their service without pay to come to work. He said Professor Clive Thomas, who heads the Unit has been in contact with a number of international agencies, and at the appropriate time, will make statements in that regard.
In early June, Government had disclosed that it was establishing a State Asset Recovery Unit (SARU) to look into the issue of State assets that have been siphoned off, both locally and abroad, by various persons and bodies. The plan was to link with international agencies in order to establish international best practices.
Minister Harmon had said then that the Unit will be a multiagency one, independent and free from political intervention. Eminent Economist, Professor Clive Thomas, roughly calculated that some $300 billion were siphoned off per year, a figure that was upped to $500 billion by a major external financial body. According to Harmon, even if just a fraction of say “10 per cent or 20 per cent of what was taken over the years is recovered, it will be substantial and it will do a lot of good to the state of the country and its economy”.
The Minister noted that this kind of recovery attempt is a work in progress that will unfold more in weeks to come. His goal at the time was to provide some answers that Guyanese are looking for in this area. He cautioned against ‘hurry’, noting that “these things take time and it may appear as though nothing is being accomplished”.
The bottom line, the Minister said, is that it must be accepted that people who are culpable where the nation’s assets are concerned “will not get away with it”.
He elaborated that when the Recovery Unit is conducting its work, it will do so with various recommendations that will be taken up by the Government. He said too that the Unit will be vested with broad powers and will not be vulnerable to political strictures.
In fact, the Minister emphasised that the body will report directly to the National Assembly, and not Ministers.
You must be logged in to post a comment.