Postal officials have implicated senior ministry employees –Edghill
By Nigel Williams
Stabroek News
November 14, 2002
Post Office Chairman, Bishop Juan Edghill says that postal officials have implicated senior employees of the Human Services Ministry in the old age pension fraud.
As investigations deepen into the scam, Edghill and Human Services Minister, Bibi Shadick were again at odds yesterday over who was responsible for specimens of the voucher never being shown to post office employees.
Edghill said yesterday the corporation has documents stating that the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security had refused to provide it with a specimen of the new old age pension coupon. Shadick in reply said she knew nothing of this.
The multi-million Old Age Pension Scam involved a network of postal officials cashing forged vouchers provided, according to GPOC investigations, by staffers from the ministry.
Edghill was yesterday reacting to a comment made by Social Security minister Shadick last week in an interview with this newspaper that she found it hard to believe that the corporation went ahead and cashed vouchers without first seeing a specimen. Edghill had stated at an earlier press conference that one of the reasons why the corporation was unable to detect the fraud, was because it was refused a specimen of the new voucher by someone in high authority at the ministry.
Shadick had responded by saying: “I am not aware of any request made by the corporation. I think that it was bad judgement on the part of GPOC to go ahead and pay something that they had no knowledge about.”
Yesterday the GPOC chairman said he has no intention to start a confrontation with the minister, but rather to clarify the corporation’s position. Edghill told Stabroek News that, “the facts are, in January when the ministry introduced the new system of paying Old Age Pension, we wrote to the ministry indicating to them that we did not receive any specimen with the security features.”
Edghill further stated that they did not get a written response so the GPOC contacted officials from the ministry. He said the finance manager of the corporation made contact with the ministry and after no satisfactory response was given he took it upon himself to call Shadick.
“I told her to look into the matter, but her response was that the ministry felt that the security features on the voucher was a matter that should be kept internally, which was the advice given to her by the Auditor General,” Edghill said.
Edghill pointed out that proof of the letter is available and would be made public when the time reaches.
But when contacted yesterday Shadick made it clear that she never knew of any request made by the post office to her. She said she does not handle pension books, neither does she distribute or pay pensions.
According to Shadick “If I had known I would have said so. I, Minister Bibi Shadick am not aware of any such request by the post office and our refusal to give the specimen.”
Edghill said he too can only say what had transpired between him and the minister and it is left to the general public to determine the truth. Besides, Edghill said that their investigations have pointed to the fact there were people in the ministry who understood the system and who collaborated with postal officials.
When asked why the post office was not more alert, Edghill acknowledged that there was some lapse on the part of the corporation’s accounts personnel. “Our officers who are responsible for checking should have noted some of these things because investigations show that most of the vouchers had the same handwriting signing all the time.” Sources say that the vouchers also came in sheaves at a time and this should have triggered alarm bells.
Twenty-three persons have been interdicted from duty by the corporation, including postmasters, accounts staff etc, while three social workers from the ministry were questioned by police. Edghill said the GPOC still has information that the police need to act on and verify. He said during their investigations, the postal officials called the names of some senior officers at the ministry who allegedly collaborated with them in the fraud. He told Stabroek News that all of the officers named are attached to the social security department of the ministry. He noted too that they have information that would lead the police to persons outside of the postal administration and the ministry who are alleged to have been engaged in the scam.
Asked what measures have been put in place by the corporation to detect any other such attempt, Edghill said, “the minister had said that if (postal officials) did not see a specimen of the vouchers they should not have encashed them. We only received the specimen after the scam was made known.”
He said that at this point all of their officers are aware what a valid voucher looks like and they can now detect certain security features before encashment.
“But the regular rule is, it is difficult for someone to show up at a counter with one fraudulent voucher and not be detected.
This was not how the scam was perpetrated but there was prior arrangement.”
Edghill observed that the fraudulent vouchers are vastly different from the valid ones and even if the postmasters had seen specimens of the valid vouchers the fact that there was collaboration between them and the ministry officials meant the scam would have still prospered.
Persons identified as having been involved in the scam are being required to report to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters Eve Leary on a daily basis pending charges in the case.
Public Relations Officer of the GPF, assistant Superintendent, David Ramnarine told Stabroek News that whatever comes out of the police’s investigations would have to be tested against the financial reports of the auditors.
The Auditor General has since been called in to investigate the scam and from all reports a number of persons from the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security and the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) have been questioned and have had to submit statements.
