No progress yet in probe of missing TPL files

http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article?id=56522775

No progress yet in probe of missing TPL files
Stabroek News
Tuesday, June 19th 2007

Though the Toolsie Persaud Limited's (TPL) files that disappeared from
Customs House some months ago are no closer to being recovered, the
company is seeking to make right with the Guyana Revenue Authority
(GRA) and bring its tax dispute matter to a speedy resolution.

A source close to Commis-sioner General Khurshid Sattaur said the GRA
was still carrying out its internal investigation to discover what
happened to the files.

"We are not ruling out collusion. We're concerned about the intent or
possible intent of the disappearance since it could serve the
taxpayer," the source said.

A police investigation had commenced and this is still ongoing, a
police source said.

According to the source, Sattaur is soon to receive a report from his
Customs staff on the internal investigation.

The GRA source said that though the Commissioner General was not
casting blame or ascribing guilt it was reasonable to conclude that
there had been collusion on the files' disappearance. Sattaur, the
source disclosed, said too that it was not usual for files to go
missing in Customs House.

The person said the GRA has means of arriving at a conclusion on
whether the business was liable through means other than the
information contained in the files.

Speaking to Stabroek News last week, lawyer for TPL Sanjeev Datadin
said the company has decided against proceeding with court action for
the time being with the hope that the matter would be resolved. Datadin
said TPL was in communication with the GRA with a view to bringing the
matter to a close.

According to the source, Sattaur opined that the GRA shared some of the
blame since the files' disappearance showed that system controls had
been compromised. Human error was not being ruled out in the files
being misplaced but at the same time, it seemed convenient that the
files vanished during a revenue matter, the source said.

In April, the GRA had said that TPL had been evading the payment of
consumption tax on quarry sales and that the sums of consumption tax
owed was in the vicinity of hundreds of millions of dollars.