NAMILCO flour thieves convicted

Last Updated on Monday, 2 May 2016, 20:04 by Denis Chabrol

Two persons, including an employee of Guyana’s National Milling Company (NAMILCO), have been convicted and fined for stealing  several bags of flour from the Agricola, East Bank Demerara-based entity.

They are former Dhanuk Dhari and  former Delivery Clerk, Dasrath Ramanan have been found guilty of conspiracy to steal flour from NAMILCO and fined GYD$100,000 each.

Former Warehouse Supervisor, Hera Bachan died during the course of the trial.

The decision was handed down by Magistrate Fabayo Azore on March 21, 2016, six years after the trio had conspired to commit simple larceny of 24 bags of flour valued at GYD$198,000 from NAMILCO on October, 2, 2009.

Commenting on the conviction of the defendants, the Managing Director of NAMILCO Mr. Bert Sukhai stated the company was pleased with the decision and hoped that this would send a strong message to others that the company was not prepared to tolerate theft and offenders would be prosecuted either publicly or privately.

Special Prosecutors- Attorneys-at-Law  Gino Persaud and G. Arvindra Hira, Attorneys-at-Law led evidence that NAMILCO had internal control systems in place to prevent the theft of flour. All vehicles driving into NAMILCO’s compound for delivery/sales of flour are required to be weighed in on the company’s heavy duty digital scale which records and prints the weight.

The vehicles are then weighed out again after being loaded with flour and the difference in weight is again recorded and reconciled with the amount of flour on the vehicle. The prosecution led further evidence that the documents and checks by NAMILCO revealed that on 2nd October, 2009 Motor Lorry GDD 7005 driven by DHARI of 87 Pike Street, Kitty was loaded with twenty-four extra bags of flour valued GYD$198,000.

The prosecutors said the weighted recordings of the heavy duty scale of the said Motor Lorry driven by Dhari in relation to this transaction were falsely recorded by Bachan. It was the prosecution’s case that the trio colluded with each other falsifying records about the weight of the said truck and making false statements about the actual quantities on the said truck with the intent to steal flour from NAMILCO.

Special Prosecutors Persaud and Hira were given permission by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to take over and continue the prosecution from the police upon the request of NAMILCO after concerns were raised about the quality of the police’s prosecution of both that and an earlier case with similar facts which saw those defendants being acquitted.