RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The Fraud Squad of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance of more than $300,000 from the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SRC). This was con­firmed by chair­man Di­nesh Sankers­ingh who said an ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cer has been trans­ferred. 

Sankers­ingh said he is hop­ing crim­i­nal charges will be laid and the mon­ey re­turned.

“I have spo­ken to the CEO and the po­lice are con­duct­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I should be in­ter­viewed lat­er in the week to­geth­er with the Leader of Op­po­site chair Mr De­bisette. I want to ad­vise the mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed and the mon­ey must be re­turned. I rec­om­mend that crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions take place to bring to jus­tice who­ev­er mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed this mon­ey,” he said.

“I do not have a com­mand of all in­for­ma­tion. The po­lice called me and asked me if I can dis­cuss it. I agreed but the po­lice are yet to come. They said this week or next week.”

Coun­cil­lor for Av­o­cat/San Fran­cique Dood­nath Mayrhoo said based on in­for­ma­tion he had re­ceived a cheque was made out by the SRC and an em­ploy­ee went to the bank to cash the cheque.

“The bank be­came sus­pi­cious and re­alised that the cheque was tam­pered with and the fig­ures on the cheque had been changed to a larg­er amount. They went to an­oth­er bank and the cheque was cashed. There were some red flags raised and then it was picked up when the bank re­alised it was a fraud­u­lent cheque,” Mayrhoo said.

Asked whether the bank had any sup­port­ing doc­u­ments or sig­na­tures, Mayrhoo said: “Some­one ini­tialled the cheque and when the bank of­fi­cials checked the sig­na­ture they re­alised it was dif­fer­ent.”

Mayrhoo said the sit­u­a­tion is wor­ri­some and em­bar­rass­ing es­pe­cial­ly since the cor­po­ra­tion is cash-strapped and can­not find enough mon­ey for the de­liv­ery of goods and ser­vices.

He said since the in­ci­dent all trans­ac­tions done by the SRC are be­ing flagged by the bank and the teller al­ways checks with the SRC Ac­count­ing De­part­ment for ver­i­fi­ca­tion be­fore cash­ing any cheque.

PNM coun­cil­lor for La Brea Ger­ald De­bisette said he want­ed the po­lice to speed up the in­ves­ti­ga­tions and bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

“When coun­cil­lors get their stipend they go to the bank. An al­der­man went to the bank and he found it strange when the teller told him to hold on and wait be­cause they went to check the bank records,” De­bis­tette said.

The po­lice con­firmed that the mat­ter is un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion and doc­u­ments have al­ready been seized.