The Consular Section of the Embassy of the United States of America, Georgetown, Guyana, has recently revoked the non-immigrant visas of two Opposition Members of Parliament.
According to the Peoples Progressive Party, MPs Dharamkumar Seeraj and Nigel Dharamlall have received letters from the Embassy stating that it is in receipt of information which it did not have at the time that the visas were granted.
Similar letters were received by the other persons who were slapped with fraud charges in relation to Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB).
Six Former Board Members of the Rice Board were on Friday, (May 19, 2017) charged with fraud totalling over $400 million.
The multi-million-dollar fraud at the Rice Development Board covers the period 2011 to 2015.
The PPP MPs, GRDB former Deputy General Manager, Ricky Ramraj, Former General Manager Jagnarine Singh and former GRDB board members Badrie Persaud and Prema Roopnarine were slapped with five separate charges to which they were not required to plead as it was entered indictable.
They were placed on $500,000 bail each and ordered to lodge their passports.
The Court heard that the six-accused conspired to omit to enter different sums of money into a ledger that was deposited into the Board’s Republic Bank Account.
The first omission occurred in 2011 to the tune of $52 million.
The other omissions were in the sums of $77.3 million, $130 million, $9.7 million and $145 million.
The case will be called again on June 22, 2017.
The PPP noted that those persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty. As such, they have instructed their attorneys -at-law to write to the Consular Section of the said Embassy requesting the new information which it has received.
The Party vows to pursue the matter “as far as is possible.”
