Guardian reporter fined $20,000

Alibey was spared a jail term by Port-of- Spain Magistrate, Christine Charles, who told him that as a well qualified person academically, it was no excuse to say he relied on bad advice.

Alibey has been given until Friday to pay $5,000 and the balance of the fine by January 30.

If he fails to pay the fine, he will be sentenced to two years in prison.

He was also ordered to repay to the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) the sum of money he fraudulently recovered in VAT by March 29 or spend two years in prison if he fails to do so.

Alibey’s company Agro Aggressive Organisation and Maintenance Services was reprimanded and discharged by the magistrate.

Alibey was before the court on a charge of recovering VAT although his business was not registered with the BIR.

He pleaded guilty to the charge laid by the Criminal Tax Investigation Unit of the BIR when he appeared before Charles last week.

As director of Agro Aggressive, Alibey received a contract for $832,703.50 on July 1, 2013, to carry out refurbishment and maintenance work at the Valencia Community Centre by the Ministry of Sport. The company issued an invoice in the sum of $253,000 to the Sport Ministry for payment which was approved and received on September 6, 2013.

It was later revealed that Agro Aggressive was not registered to collect VAT despite billing the Ministry $33,000 for VAT on its invoice.

Alibey was expected to register his company with the BIR when his company exceeded the vatable threshold of $200,000 and had failed to do so when he acquired the $832,730.50 contract for the work on the Valencia Community Centre.