The Director of Public Prosecutions has recommended charges against the operator of the company which duped over 56 seamen into paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a bogus training program.
Wanting to better position themselves to take advantage of the opportunities in Guyana’s fairly new oil and gas sector, the seamen were duped into doing oil and gas training. The men are being told that the certificate they received is fake.
The seamen said that they saw an advertisement for training and recruiting by an agency for an oil company in Guyana and responded. It was related that the school offering the courses is located in New Amsterdam and had advertised two courses for applicants.
Those courses were the Standards of Training Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) and Lifting and Banksman course. To complete the course, applicants were required to pay a total fee of $260,000 for the two courses.
However, to date, they are yet to make good on the promises and that led to several Police reports by the affected seamen.
The DPP has recommended that charges in relation to collecting money by false pretense be brought against the company’s operator.
Acting on the advice from the DPP, in excess of a dozen charges have been made out for the woman who operates the agency which is located in New Amsterdam, Berbice.
Following a prolonged investigation, files were prepared and sent to the DPP for advice.
