OPINION: A $900 million tax mystery

Last Updated on Monday, 17 March 2025, 22:28 by Writer

by GHK Lall

Congratulations are extended to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for its energy, efficiency, and integrity. It is deserving given the $900 million-plus development involving the Mohameds. What troubles is that it took four years for this tax undervaluation issue to bubble. The timing also has its own immaculate texture. For a dumbo from Hobo, this is a little over my head, so I have some questions, with a few thoughts squeezed in sideways to make a point or two in what I label this $900 million plus mystery. First, the context and then the facts.

A Lamborghini or a Ferrari is not my father’s Morris Oxford. He had a bicycle. It is out of the ordinary, as in high-end and high-priced. Yet the only citizens who were seemingly impressed by it were regular Guyanese pedestrians and minibus commuters. There was no awe and admiration at the GRA; just another stack of import documents to be stamped and weighed before being signed. My handicap begins with what could have possibly gone into the weighing. To ensure the proper degree of sobriety here, it was a Lamborghini and Ferrari under the microscope and not some run-of-the-mill Honda Civic. If the Japanese are offended, I apologize. There is valuation, and then there is valuation that is out into the stratosphere. The two luxury imports qualify for inclusion in the latter category. And by a million miles; many such millions. So, what went wrong at the GRA? Why this unbelievable slippage? Where were the internal auditors, or the quality control folks, all very sharp people? For the 10^th time, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari are exceptional items, worthy of a watercooler conversation, at least.

I put my thoughts into a cupful of questions. First, are Guyanese to believe that the GRA is so incompetent? Incompetence breeds sluggishness. But to take four years to discover the valuations submitted were on the cheap side, and very much so, is a little too steep for me. Rich too. Second, was this one of those Guyanese situations where there was subtle external influence (the whispered kind)? I urge citizens to go up the chain and to the heights. Third, was there heavy-handed interference from outside of the GRA? Because I refrain from sullying this public service; the p-word is not used. Fourth, the Mohameds are not normally associated with people in a soup kitchen line, nor are they known to be tightfisted, so did this feature in any way? Fifth, when the extraordinary timing of the GRA blow to the Mohameds is considered, does the e-word have anything to do with it? Recall that I’m the dumbo from Hobo—people like me are always seeking enlightenment.

Now I have a few other words to say, and they are delivered unambiguously. The GRA under Sir Godfrey of Florida and Demerara has done wonderfully. But this $900 million plus four-year mystery has transformed it from wonderful into a weapon. A crude, blunt-edged sledgehammer of malevolent and vicious intent, to which Dr. Terrence Campbell and now the Mohameds can give firsthand testimony. If not weaponised, how it could have collapsed on the job so clumsily is beyond me. This cannot be incompetence alone. Or the usual import shifting alone (get the drift, please). A tax bill of that magnitude (even with interest and penalties subtracted) is a hell of a risk for the adventurous in the GRA to contemplate first, and then activate. And, to do so with such high-end, high-priced, high-profile motorized chariots as a Lamborghini and a Ferrari drawing all eyes like magnets, is daring, to put it mildly. It makes me inquire about the combination of factors that went into the undervaluation and under-taxation that have now returned to turn the Mohameds upside down, along with the GRA, the big people, and the rest of Guyana.

I would think that there was some escalation, and some additional eyes at the GRA were involved. How high and how many are issues that sizzle. Then the thought about how many outside and above the walls of the GRA also has its place. Don’t forget there is that instrument called a telephone, plus the network of local relationships. For the record, I am not in it, like where I am. Now try this other shoe to see how snug it feels. The US slapped the Mohameds with sanctions going on for 10 months now. They had much to do with taxes. A reasonable thought is that the GRA would conduct a keen review of all things tax-related to the Mohameds, since tax is mentioned. Did it do so? What was uncovered and when? Surely, a $900 million tax hole would have been detected. Forget about red flags. It is a gorilla. Next item: was the previously unknown then known, say, within 2-4 months of the US sanctions? But here are the Mohameds nine-plus months later.

Candidly, I am struggling to figure out how this $900 million gorilla could have been a mystery for the GRA for so long. The Mohameds are not known to be unattached. Was Mr. Naysayer, Mr. Thursday Midafternoon Kaiso King, and Mr. Budget all comfortably insulated in their own world? It is close to a billion dollars involved, lest the memory takes a walk. A billion-dollar mystery that just happened to be the best-kept secret in Guyana.