Linden Electricity Company filed no tax returns in last eight years

The Linden Electricity Company Inc. has been called out by the Auditor General in the 2020 report for its failure to file tax returns.

The report, which was made public two days ago, observed that no returns were filed with the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for the last eight years. This is compounded by the fact that no computation has been presented for audit verification.

In fact, while returns are outstanding for eight years, the electricity company which saw a change its Board earlier this year, was last audited in 2018, and the last time an audit was laid in the National Assembly was in 2013.

This means that the company is in breach of several financial regulations and laws.

When contacted on Wednesday, the company’s Finance Manager Donna Giles could not immediately provide answers to these lapses but said she would seek further guidance from the Consulting Accountant, James Benjamin.

The News Room made attempts to reach Benjamin but those were futile.

The audit office, in its report, noted that while financial statements were received in 2019, none were received in 2020.

Giles said the audit report for 2019 has since been submitted and that work is ongoing on the 2020 audit report. She could not comment specifically on the financial statements.

The Head of Budget Agency Sonya Roopnauth stated that the observations are correct.  The company has reportedly been engaged to have all outstanding Annual Reports submitted where necessary. The respective Permanent Secretary’s Secretariat will also be working with the agency to rectify this in the earliest possible time.

In March 2021, Prime Minister, Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips installed a new Board of Directors at the Linden Electricity Company

The new Board of Directors is chaired by Andrew Forsythe and includes Aubrey Major, Joan Monkhouse, Orin Wilson, Hazelyn Luther, Audwin Rutherford, Nizamudin Allie and Abdoul Majid.