General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday rubbished promises made by Presidential Candidate of the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party Azruddin Mohamed.
One of the promises recently made by the businessman, who is facing sanctions from the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), is that he will give up his presidential salary if he is elected to serve in that high office.
However, Jagdeo pointed out that through corruption and tax evasion, for which Mohamed is sanctioned, he has already robbed the State of 275 years’ worth of presidential salaries.
“He evaded in five years $11 billion in taxes so he hasn’t even served a single day and he has collected the salary equivalent to 275 years that a president would take to earn what he has stolen from the treasury. He doesn’t need to collect presidential salary, he collected it already,” Jagdeo noted during his weekly press conference.
In 2024, OFAC announced that it sanctioned Nazar Mohamed and his son, Azruddin Mohamed, as well as several of their companies for their roles in public corruption in Guyana. The sanctions are related to the evasion of taxes on gold exports, noting that between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10 thousand kilograms (kg) of gold from import and export declarations. They were sanctioned pursuant to Executive Order 13818, which builds upon and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuses and corruption globally.
Further, Mohamed is before the court for allegedly evading taxes on a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster imported in December 2020.
“Even on the Lamborghini, he has evaded [taxes] by submitting a fake invoice, the equivalent of ten years of a presidential salary,” the PPP/C General Secretary and former President said.
Jagdeo further scoffed at promises made by Mohamed to also tackle corruption given his sanctioned status for similar practices.
“Imagine a man sanctioned for gold smuggling by the United States of America Treasury, being accused of money laundering by Reuters, drug smuggling by Reuters, who has been accused of murder, he has been implicated in torture and trafficking of people, he is talking about tackling corruption,” he highlighted.
Jagdeo, who is also Vice President, pointed out that Mohamed is unable to establish a bank account anywhere in the world and therefore cannot do business anywhere.
“No bank in the world will do business with the Mohameds and you’re talking about corruption,” he added.
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