Minister of State Joseph Harmon said an investigation will be launched into the contents of an email purportedly sent from an address in the name of former Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO), Ash Deonarine, to a current employee of the utility.
The document which surfaced in the public domain last weekend contained damning allegations against several former and current employees of the utility company. The lengthy email suggests that former GPL acting CEO Collin Welch was allegedly framed so that he could be removed from the post. The document also outlined instructions to conceal evidence of a massive meter racket within the company.
However, Harmon told the media that Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson briefed Cabinet on Tuesday and indicated that initial investigations have revealed that the email address is fake.
“Some preliminary investigations had been done and the matter had been handed over to the Police for further investigations. The sense that we got from the brief was that it seems that the email address had been fake, made up,” he stated.
Nevertheless, the Minister of State pointed out that the content of the document is of concern to Government, and as such the matter has since been handed over to Police for further investigations.
GPL has been in the limelight for close to a year now after Deonarine was sent on administrative leave in August last year following the discovery that he allegedly transferred some $27.8 million to his personal account without the approval of the board of directors. He is also accused of paying former board member Carvil Duncan $948,000 that was not authorised.
This information was unearthed when the Coalition Administration found that close to $142 million of the PetroCaribe Fund was plugged into the operations of the state-owned GPL after it met an empty PetroCaribe fund when it took office and later launched an investigation.
