On Wednesday afternoon President Bharrat Jagdeo ordered that the report into the remigration scam be handed to state prosecutors and the Auditor-General's Depart-ment and that the vehicles in the racket be confiscated. He also ordered that the duty-free concessions of those persons be revoked.

Stabroek News reported on Wednesday that more than half of the documents under scrutiny were found to be bogus.

Sattaur told Stabroek News yesterday that the now-accelerated seizures of the vehicles began some time ago and that it was a very difficult exercise. He said too that the owners of the vehicles "have a lot to hide" and he did not want to divulge too much regarding the numbers of vehicles taken off the road as they may become elusive.

The report found that only 31 of the 86 concessions granted in August 2003 satisfied the requisite criteria. The report, which the GRA sent to the President, "identified a series of deliberate acts by public officers who violated the criteria," and also found negligence by other officers in their authorising of those concessions. Jagdeo also ordered that the probe into the scam be expanded to periods before August 2003 with a view to quantifying the loss of revenue.

In a comment to this newspaper, Information Liaison to the President, Robert Persaud, said that the implementation of Jagdeo's directives began immediately after he gave them.

So far in the investigation two persons from the Ministry of Finance have been interdicted from duty pending the outcome of the Police investigations. One staffer said to be a supervisor of the same ministry is still on the job, according to sources.

One official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been linked to the scam and is said to be still at work.

Meanwhile, as reported in this newspaper yesterday, Secretary to the Treasury in the Ministry of Finance Neermal Rekha said that he could not be expected to verify whether the Foreign Minis-ter's signature was authentic. He further said that it was the responsibility of the issuing ministry to check and verify all documents that bear the relevant minister's signature. Part of the scam involved the forging of the signature of the Minister of Foreign Affairs on documents before they were sent to the Ministry of Finance for final approval.

Prior to September 1, 2003, Rekha's signature sealed the approval of duty-free letters for the clearance of goods and vehicles with the remittance of all or a part of the duty and consumption tax. (Johann Earle)