A Guyana Energy Agency fuel inspector has found himself facing tough questions after a “thief” on Sunday morning carted off a $4 Million piece of equipment that the agency uses to test fuel to see whether it was marked as legal or not.
The incident occurred at the GEA inspection booth which is located at the Mackenzie/Wismar bridge in Linden. Police investigators were told that the young fuel inspector had “closed” his eyes while on duty around 4 am listening to the radio when he heard a sound. He reportedly opened his eyes to see a man with the piece of equipment in his hands running out the door. The police were told that he gave chase to the man but stopped as the man headed into a nearby plot of land that was bushy.
When he returned to his work site and started to look for clues, it was then that he realised that the cables for one of the surveillance cameras located on the small building was cut. That camera is the one which points directly to the door and would have picked up anyone leaving or arriving in the booth.
A source close to the Guyana Energy Agency today explained that the equipment which was stolen is known as an LXS Machine and it is used to test fuel that may have been marked as legal by smugglers. The source said a similar machine went missing a few months ago from the GEA head office in Georgetown. Fuel markers also went missing from the head office.
Just recently, a number of GEA inspectors were fired after they failed lie detector tests. And late last year in December, a GEA fuel inspector went missing without a trace. He has not been seen or heard from since.
Fuel smuggling is big business in Guyana especially in the mining communities. Fuel would be illegally imported from Venezuela for use in mining communities. The Energy Agency has been trying to step up their monitoring.
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