Two of four officials implicated in a remigrant concession scam at the ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs were interdicted from duty last week pending the outcome of police investigations and possible charges.

The investigation by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has been completed, but the police in a separate investigation are believed to be close to laying charges against an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs close to the remigrant scheme.

Stabroek News has been reliably informed that over 50% of the 86 duty-free letters, which were under scrutiny, were deemed to be fraudulent. These letters were signed by Secretary to the Treasury (ST), Neermal Rekha.

The GRA launched an investigation into fraudulent concession letters last year after allegations surfaced about the scam.

Two clerks and a supervisor in the Ministry of Finance and an official in the Ministry of Foreign Trade were under probe.

However questions are also being asked as to how Rekha's office, whose seal of approval of the concessions was vital, prior to new tax laws coming into effect in September, did not detect the bogus documents.

Rekha, who confirmed two of his junior staff are off the job and are being questioned by the police, did not want to react as yet to the statements in other sections of the media linking him to the scam.

"The police came in [to the Ministry of Finance] and we gave them all the records," he said, adding that things have changed.

As it stands, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prepares letters determining who is a remigrant. This is done on a stencil form with an accompanying carbon copy. The Minister of Foreign Affairs signs the original and a carbon copy; the original is retained on file while the carbon copy is sent to the Ministry of Finance with supporting documents on each person's individual items eligible for treatment of duty-free status.

A clerk and a supervisor check these documents before they are presented to Rekha for signature. It was found that in most of the 86 cases under scrutiny for August 2003, photocopies of the letters were in the files instead of the carbon copies. A simple check of the files prior to any signature would have determined that the letters giving remigrant status were bogus, sources say.

All of these bogus concessions are expected to be cancelled and the persons called in to pay their dues to the Treasury. It is believed that the bogus letters would have defrauded the Treasury of tens of millions.

Rekha told Stabroek News that in light of the investigations, his ministry is now re-interviewing persons claiming remigrant status even after they would have been cleared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He said his ministry now has an officer who makes appointments, and interviews persons seeking concessions to bring in their goods or vehicles duty free, wholly or partially. He says the ministry conducts independent checks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

When the investigation began last year, Rekha had told Stabroek News he was confident that there was nothing amiss in his ministry and stood by the letters his ministry issued.