Aaron Royalty Inc, the company which claimed that it had a “verbal” agreement with the Guyana Oil (GuyOil) company to import fuel does not have and never applied for an import licence.
This was confirmed on Saturday when Inews contacted Chief Executive Officer of Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) Dr Mahender Sharma, who also revealed that Aaron Royalty has not even applied for the fuel import licence needed to import fuel.
According to Dr Sharma, investigations are underway to ascertain how exactly the company imported the fuel. The CEO also noted that “pending that investigation, we’ll determine a course of action.”
Reports had emerged last week that Jason Aaron of Aaron Royalty alleged officials at GuyOil contracted him to import fuel. However, Aaron claimed that after the company got a “sweeter” deal, the transaction was quashed.
However, GuyOil Chairman Paul Cheong subsequently denied the allegations made by Aaron. The Chairman noted that while GuyOil did have discussions with the company, the company was never contracted to bring in fuel.
Further, on April 21, Attorney-at-Law Dexter Todd, who is representing Aaron Royalty, related that he had dispatched a letter to GuyOil seeking clarification on a number of issues.
The lawyer told Inews that his client needed clarification on who would take responsibility for the fuel that had already been procured.
“So, we have to determine, at the end of the day, who will be responsible for the fuel that is here… this oral agreement seems to have been performed by one party which is our client and there is some form of reneging because of whatever is their wrangle, I’m not too sure what exactly is the internal wrangling.”
This is likely a reference to former GuyOil General Manager Trevor Bassoo, who resigned from the company after he reportedly distributed printouts of a WhatsApp conversation between Aaron Royalty and a manager at the company. In those messages, the manager was allegedly implicated in the transaction, though he has staunchly denied involvement.
Already, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh has ordered that Auditor General Deodat Sharma be called in to investigate the transaction. Soon after the allegation first reared its head, the Finance Minister called a meeting with the GuyOil Board of Directors where he was briefed.
Dr Singh had assured that based on the findings of the probe, actions will be taken against all parties involved in malpractices on behalf of GuyOil.
