Former Chair of the Guyana Gold Board (GGB), Gabriel “GHK” Lall’s silence has been flagged following the mounting unanswered questions regarding the account of events regarding gold smuggling by US-indicted Mohameds, and equal concerns about key elements of his academic and professional background.
Former APNU+AFC official Leonard Craig, in a column in Monday’s edition of the Guyana Chronicle, highlighted the deafening silence by Lall who is monotonous when churning out aggressive commentary against the current government.
Craig wrote: “While Lall is out there casting aspersions, he is yet to properly defend potent allegations of links to, and actions taken to facilitate gold-smuggling by the embattled Mohameds, while he (Lall) was the head of the Gold Board.
“Further, GHK Lall has not uttered a word to clarify accusations of not only embellishing his accomplishments, but outrightly concocting an academic and professional profile that does not exist in the real world, an unflinching, audacious liar in full ‘superfluousity.’ It would, therefore, not be difficult to associate Lall with terms such as diddle, chicanery and pseudo-intellectual flimflam.”
Questions surrounding Lall’s credibility have intensified following the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioning and indictment by federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida of businessman Azruddin Mohamed and his father Nazar Mohamed.
The duo was charged with multiple counts of fraud, money laundering, and related offences.
In October, Lall, during a press conference, publicly denied that the father-and-duo were ever on the radar for gold smuggling while he was chairman.
In fact, he said the dossier provided by the US Embassy did not include the names of then gold exporters Azruddin and his father Nazar as suspected gold smugglers.
However, shortly after, the former Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, confirmed that the US authorities shared dossiers with the-then APNU+AFC government that included the Mohamed’s names in relation to suspected gold smuggling.
“A number of gold dealers were on the list, including the Mohameds, but the focus did not appear to be the Mohameds. At least, not at that time,” Trotman is quoted as saying in a Demerara Waves Online News article.
As highlighted by Craig, much is left unanswered regarding what took place: “Lall denied the existence of a document containing the names of the Mohameds in relation to suspected gold- smuggling during his tenure on the Gold Board. Within hours, he ‘get skin up’ by Raphael Trotman. Trotman admitted that as minister, he was aware of a dossier from the US Government, shared with the Gold Board, that contained the names of the Mohameds.
“Lall is still faced with a myriad of conspiracy theories, for which no plausible body of information is available to extricate him from allegations that, at the very least, he turned a blind eye to prolific levels of gold trans-shipment and smuggling, which occurred under his tenure. I guess Lall thinks that by washing his mouth daily on every conceivable government policy, we will somehow forget his record of debasement.
“Lall has no moral rectitude to lecture anyone on the virtues of governance. Shakespeare has a question concerning ‘the state of Denmark’ and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson might ask, ‘can you smell what Lall is cooking?’ In comes Volda Lawrence with an apt answer, ‘sink a fish.”
Craig then criticised Lall’s appointment as Chair of the GGB and wrote: “The simple question is, what has Lall contributed politically or administratively to the Gold Board that any of the displaced younger and more vibrant politically immersed people could not have? There is enough on the public record directly from Lall that can be termed as barefaced lies that exposes the totality of his outpourings snugly under the classification, ‘incredible.”
Craig has publicly challenged Alliance For Change (AFC)’s former leader Nigel Hughes and other members including: Cathy Hughes, Trotman, David Patterson or Khemraj Ramjattan to offer the name of just one person (young or otherwise) that they, either individually or together mentored or exposed to leadership that eventually gained any form of national recognition, or that produced any form of political dividend which the AFC can cash in on today.