No doubt about it, Mr. Rekha, Secretary to the Treasury since August 2001, is making a serious attempt to get his work done and comes across as a no-nonsense public servant. Of course he depends on the machinery within the Ministry of Finance to be able to function effectively and this machinery is manned by humans who are paid low wages, are demoralised and would be tempted once the opportunity presents itself, to help themselves at the government coffers, directly or indirectly.

However, a foolproof system is not susceptible to manipulation. And the buck stops with Mr. Rekha. He has been caught napping by his juniors and they seized the chance to make a profit. Obviously the collusion to defraud the government of revenues is not recent as those involved would have been at this for a while and having gotten away with it at least once and perhaps on other occasions, sought to maximise their returns on the transition period to new legislative arrangements for the granting of duty free concessions in September 2003.

As it stood then, no duty free concession could have been awarded without Mr. Rekha's approval and key to that approval would have been letters granting remigrant status by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The system was that a remigrant officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would prepare in stencil format the details of persons who are eligible for remigrant status. This is done in an original and a carbon copy. The Minister of Foreign Affairs affixes his signature to both the original and the carbon copy. The original is kept on file at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the carbon copy is sent to the Ministry of Finance with supporting documents for duty-free treatment of personal effects of remigrants.

However, it was found that photocopies were substituted for carbon copies and the details of remigrants changed as well as the Minister's signature forged to allow for a manipulation of the system.

Mr. Rekha in a statement to Stabroek News says he checks to verify that there is an original signature of the Minister and he would not be aware of an altered signature.

But it is not just a matter of an original signature. Mr. Rekha should have been aware that he should have been dealing strictly with carbon copies and not photocopies providing the details of persons who were granted remigrant status.

Had he been checking the files he had been signing off for duty free concessions himself, it would have hit him that the pattern was irregular with some remigrant details appearing in carbon copy and some as photocopies. Mr. Rekha obviously did not check and trusted his staffers implicitly to do their jobs. He presided over a system which was open to abuse.

The fraud was committed elsewhere but Mr Rekha would appear to have been guilty of dereliction of duty and negligence in this instance.

The findings of the investigation should be released to the public and a further investigation launched to determine the full extent of the fraud. Those officers who have colluded to defraud the state of its revenues should be charged. The President has already announced a revocation of the bogus concessions.