Former Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) Chairman Vickram ‘Vic’ Oditt and another man are accused of inducing a local businessman to smuggle fuel from Venezuela, by pretending that they have the relevant licences to do so.
This was revealed in court documents filed by the businessman, Augustine Jackson, after Oditt and his business partner, Pradeep Abdool, both representatives of Potaro Fuel Supplies, claimed that Jackson owed them monies.
The two were granted an interim injunction by High Court Judge Diana Insanally, preventing Jackson’s vessel MT Pollux, which is known and registered as MT Melissa J, from departing Guyana until he lodged US$347,700 and $17.5 million, along with his passport, with the Registrar of the Supreme Court.
However, Mr. Oditt today responded that these media reports include “several erroneous statements” about him. INews has decided to publish Mr. Oditt’s full statement, issued in the form of a ‘Letter to the Editor’, as follows:
“I refer to the article carried in Guyana Times edition of 21 June headlined “Businessmen implicated in illegal fuel racket” and which carries my photograph and includes several erroneous statements about me.
I would like to respond as follows:
-Mr Abdool and I have brought a civil action against Mr Augustine Jackson for monies advanced to him and for which he has signed two promissory notes, which are past due. The court has ruled that his vessel should not leave Guyana unless he lodges the monies owed, along with his passport and those of his wife and her mother, with the court.
-In order to avoid paying his debts, Mr Jackson has introduced the issue of an illegality, in terms of accusing us of wanting to smuggle fuel into Guyana.
-A check with any of our regulatory agencies, GPF, CANU, GRA, GEA would indicate that Mr Abdool and I have never been implicated in any such illegal activity.
-We did enter into a Partnership Agreement with Mr Jackson, which would have entailed legally importing fuel from a refinery but we terminated it shortly after when we learnt that his vessel Pollux A, had forged paperwork and it was not qualified to enter into a refinery, as Jackson had represented to us.
The above facts are easily verifiable by any of your reporters.
What I find irritating, Mr Editor, is the huge effort at character assassination that has been mounted against me personally, as a result of unproven and baseless statements. In addition to the Times, my name is being maligned on Citizens Report INews and the PPP radio station.
It seems as if I have inadvertently mashed some peoples’ toes!!!”
