"I can't show proof of the fraud happening here or not," Rekha told Stabroek News on Friday. "We can't say whether or not documents were taken out of the building and photocopied."

A report into the granting of concessions to 86 applicants in August, 2003 found that only 31 were entitled to these and a variety of means was used to subvert the process including the forging of the signature of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the backdating of applications. The report by a state auditor said there was collusion between officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance in the scam.

When asked if he would step down as ST in the Ministry of Finance to allow for the Police investigation, Rekha told Stabroek News that he would "cross that bridge when he gets to it."

He said that when he took over the system from the acting ST Mahase Pertab in 2001, the staff at the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs continued to do things in the same way as before.

He told this newspaper that there is no log book at any of the photocopying machines at the Finance Ministry. "In terms of photocopying documents for fraud, we don't believe that it is a simple thing [to do]," he said, adding that such actions require privacy to be accomplished. He said that he does not know how someone can create the environment at his ministry for the photocopying of the documents.

He said that the ministry did a number of things immediately after the start of the investigations and both of the persons at that ministry at the centre of the allegations have agreed to utilise all of their leave. He said that the ministry wrote the Public Service Commission (PSC) on the matter of the staff taking their leave and that the commission is to get back to them on the matter. Rekha confirmed to Stabroek News that the Police placed the two persons on Station Bail and that they have to make daily reports to the Police. When asked what he intends to do on the outcome of the investigation, he said that he does not want to pre-empt or pre-judge the situation.

He said that since the investigation began staff of the Ministry of Finance spoke to the Licence Revenue Office of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) with a view to alerting staff there of the bogus letters and documents. But he said that he does not know how many of the vehicles cleared with the fake letters have been registered. "We told them to look for our originals only," he said.

On Tuesday Rekha put out a media release in which he said that he would not know if the signature of the Minister of Foreign Affairs was forged on documents presented to him for signature and that he did not have the resources to verify signatures. He added that the fact that he has many issues on his desk, which he has to sign on a daily basis, did not help the situation. He maintains that he followed the correct procedures and that he did nothing wrong.

Rekha told this newspaper that now he and his staffers do more meticulous checking of declarations on documents coming from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "We go through the declarations with the applicants [and] if they are no longer bringing a vehicle, they have to state that on another declaration," he said.

He said that some of the letters would have been issued after September 1, 2003, since some of the applicants submitted their documents "in July or late August but could not utilise the concession before September 1, 2003." He said: "All the concessions issued in July we would honour them rather than sending them to the GRA."

Rekha said that the Auditor General's Depart-ment routinely audits his office.