APNU+AFC MP lashes out at Gov’t for disbanding SARA

APNU+AFC Member of Parliament Roysdale Forde on Friday said the Government’s move to disband the State Assets Recovery Agency (SARA) is “reprehensible,” noting that the agency is necessary to tackle corruption.

“What decent Government would want to get rid of an institution such as a State Assets Recovery Agency? To replace it with what? To replace an institutional watchdog in the nature of a poodle,” Forde told the National Assembly during his budget presentation.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Mohabir Anil Nandlall last week indicated that the Government has intentions to disband SARA and put a proper constituted agency in place.

Nandlall had described the agency as “an abysmal failure.”

Forde on Friday said the Government is looking to replace the body with a unit filled with political influence.

“This nation is fully aware of the principled reason why this administration wants to get rid of the State Assets Recovery Agency. It is because it is an independent institution. It is because the State Assets Recovery Agency is there to institute proceedings against the members of the PPP/C who are considered to have improperly acquired state assets,” the Opposition Parliamentarian said.

“The PPP/C has always been afraid of strong independent institutions, it is their ideological posture to suppress strong institutions,” he added.

Forde called on the civil society to speak out against the disbanding of the agency.

SARA was set up by the APNU+AFC administration under the State Assets Recovery Act.

The only case which SARA is known to have pursued relates to Ministers of the former PPP/C Government who acquired lands at Pradoville, Sparendaam, East Coast Demerara.