‘We were never discourteous or disrespectful to Sattaur’ – GRA Chairman

Chairman of the Board of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) Rawle Lucas has defended the manner in which the Authority moved to repossess state assets from Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur.

The Governing body has been criticized by the Private Sector Commission (PSC) which claimed that the repossession of some electronic devices and other items from Sattaur was done without a warrant.

PSC said that action was an invasion of Sattaur's fundamental human rights.

"This searching of homes of officials of entities under investigation seems to have become common practice and we call upon President Granger to rein in what appears, from all accounts in the public domain, to be a show of excessive enthusiasm on the part of some persons," a release stated.

However Lucas when questioned by Demerara Waves on the issue stated that Sattaur invited the officials to retrieve the items and at no time did they act in a hostile manner.

"At no time did the staff of the GRA demonstrate any discourtesy or disrespect to Mr Sattaur…Sattaur offered the time for GRA staff to collect the property…at no time was there any confrontation," said Lucas.

He stated too that among the items repossessed included four of six vehicles that were utilized by the Commissioner General. The two remaining vehicles include a golf cart.

"We wanted to ensure that the property of the government was protected..that taxpayers data was protected…we were not interested in anything else but the taxpayer data," said Lucas.