Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Chair­man of Ramps Lo­gis­tics Guyana Shaun Ram­per­sad be­lieves that “dark forces” in the Guyanese pri­vate sec­tor want him out of the coun­try.

How­ev­er, he en­cour­ages com­pa­nies from T&T and the in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue to in­vest in Guyana as it is a coun­try with a lot of po­ten­tials.

In Au­gust, Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali vis­it­ed T&T and in­vit­ed the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to in­vest in Guyana, the re­gion’s fastest-grow­ing econ­o­my.

Ram­per­sad is due to re­turn to a mag­is­trate’s court in Guyana on No­vem­ber 25, af­ter he was re­leased on Guyanese half a mil­lion dol­lars bail on ten charges of false de­c­la­ra­tions made over the past two years to the Guyana Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (GRA).

“I think Guyana is a love­ly place and there is en­light­ened lead­er­ship with the present Gov­ern­ment of Ir­faan Ali. But there are pow­er­ful dark forces in the pri­vate sec­tor. I sus­pect what we are go­ing through has to do with el­e­ments of the Guyanese pri­vate sec­tor who have for a long time con­trolled the Guyanese busi­ness econ­o­my, and they don’t want us in Guyana. I want in­vestors to know there are great op­por­tu­ni­ties in Guyana, but they have to be care­ful,” he told the Sun­day Guardian.

He is con­fi­dent that he will be cleared of all charges that have been filed against him in Guyana.

“We will be cleared of the charges as they are bo­gus. Are they go­ing to put the lives of more than 400 em­ploy­ees in Guyana on the bread­line? I flew to Guyana, so I could go to court and de­fend my­self.”

The com­pa­ny which has been in Guyana since 2013 pro­vides lo­gis­tics ser­vices in Guyana and to meet Guyanese lo­cal con­tent cri­te­ria to op­er­ate there the com­pa­ny had to be 51 per cent Guyanese owned.

Ram­per­sad added that in June they were de­nied a lo­cal con­tent cer­tifi­cate by the Guyanese Lo­cal Con­tent Sec­re­tari­at to op­er­ate there, and it meant that by the end of 2022 if they do not have a cer­tifi­cate, they would not be able to pro­vide ser­vices to oil and gas com­pa­nies.

“The rea­son why we were de­nied the cer­tifi­cate was be­cause it was more ad­min­is­tra­tive. They want­ed cer­tain doc­u­ments. Every­thing that they asked for, we gave it to them in Ju­ly. We wrote to them in Au­gust, and they said they have lots of ap­pli­ca­tions, so they will get to ours. By Sep­tem­ber, we wrote again. Then by Sep­tem­ber 30, we filed an ap­pli­ca­tion for Ju­di­cial Re­view, and we said we’ve been con­struc­tive­ly re­fused be­cause the Lo­cal Con­tent Sec­re­tari­at is try­ing to drag the process on, and they know the more busi­ness we will lose.”

Oc­to­ber 5, mere days af­ter they filed the ap­pli­ca­tion for ju­di­cial re­view, the GRA charged the com­pa­ny with ten counts of false de­c­la­ra­tion and Ram­per­sad asked if it was a mere co­in­ci­dence.

“The Guyanese Lo­cal Con­tent Sec­re­tari­at’s de­fence on Oc­to­ber 20 is that be­cause Ramps Lo­gis­tics is fac­ing crim­i­nal charges they are putting the ap­pli­ca­tion on hold. It’s not that Ramps Lo­gis­tics has paid less du­ties or any­thing with mon­ey. The con­tention with the GRA is that on the in­voic­es for oil and gas equip­ment, they said we should have de­scribed our­selves as a ‘ship­per’ and not a ‘sell­er’. It’s just that trans­la­tion of one word on the in­voice. It had noth­ing to do with the ac­cu­ra­cy of the in­voice or the val­ue. So these charges in­sti­gat­ed by the GRA is now what al­lows the Lo­cal Con­tent Sec­re­tari­at to make their claim.”