The investigation into the remigrant vehicle scam has found that six SUVs were granted duty-free concessions despite having engine capacities over 4500 cc, sources told Stabroek News.
The luxury sport utility vehicles, under the Lexus, Toyota and Ford brands, were six of the 50 or so vehicles ensnared in the scam which involved a ring of corrupt officials at the ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs.
Rough estimates have the lost revenue at $145M and this newspaper understands that the report has recommended that the police consider criminal charges against three employees at the finance ministry and one at foreign affairs.
A number of the vehicles have been seized and are being held in the compound of the GRA Customs and Trade Administration (CTA). Stabroek News has been told that the report also says that their owners should be prosecuted and made to pay the outstanding duties.
While the report only covers the period after August 2003 investigators are now widening their probe given the likelihood that the scam had been going on for some time.
According to sources, the importers of the vehicles come from Berbice, Georgetown - including Subryanville, Lacytown, Meadowbank and Prashad Nagar - and the West Coast of Demerara. The vehicles are a Toyota Land Cruiser (4700 cc), Toyota Sequoia (4700 cc), Lexus 470 (4700 cc) and the largest, a Ford Excursion, with a capacity of 7100 cc.
The year of manufacture of the six vehicles ranges from 1998 to as late as 2003.
According to the Customs Act, no concessions are granted to trucks and to vehicles over 4500 cc. Cars under 1500cc attract a flat C Tax of US$4300; between 1500cc and 1800cc - US$6000; 1800cc to 2000cc - US$6500; 2000cc to 3000cc - US$13500; over 3000cc - US$14500.
Stabroek News contacted an official of the Ministry of Finance for an idea of the amount of revenue that the government had lost due to the scam, but he said that he could not quantify the losses, as he did not know how many of those vehicles had been registered.
At US14,500 per known vehicle, this would work out to total revenue lost for the fifty vehicles in the region of G$145M.
Online research showed that the asking price for a brand-new Lexus 470 starts at US$45,000, the Ford Excursion at US$38,000, the Toyota Land Cruiser at US$54,000 and the Toyota Sequoia US$32,000.
In addition to these vehicles being over the engine capacity limit, some of them were purchased after the duty-free concessions were granted, suggesting that the duty-free applicants did not own the vehicles when the applications were made. Sources told Stabroek News there were three cases where the date of the ST letter preceded the purchase date of the vehicles. This newspaper understands that the vehicles named in this breach were two Toyota cars and a Toyota Harrier, which is a new model SUV.
It was found that in three cases, the duty, consumption tax and purchase tax of the vehicles had not been pro-rated. The vehicles in this case were two BMWs and one Mercedes Benz.
Stabroek News understands investigators found that documents for one of the applicants had been photocopied and that there was no 'received stamp' on them. Further, there was no registration or certificate of title, rather an invoice dated March 12, 2003, which did not meet the six-month ownership requirements.
According to sources, the photocopied pages of the person's passport indicated that the remigrant had come to Guyana on July 15, 2003, and that there were no stamps to indicate which country the remigrant had come from and to which country the remigrant had returned.
It is suspected that these pages were deliberately omitted or were not photocopied, or that the stamps were fictitiously placed in the passport to mislead during the examination of these documents.
Sources said that one applicant from the Corentyne was granted remigrant status on August 7, 2003.
He had applied for duty-free concession on one 1994 Toyota Camry, but was granted concession for one Toyota Hilux Surf Wagon on August 28, 2003. It was revealed that this remigrant was not in Guyana at this period but arrived in the country on October 11, 2003.
Since the conclusion of the GRA investigation, the police have been questioning officers of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Files have been handed over to the Director of Public Prosecutions and it is expected that charges against those public officials would be forthcoming.