LifeSport VAT fraud

Guardian newspaper senior sports journalist Walter Alibey yesterday pleaded guilty to the charge laid by the Criminal Tax Investigation Unit of the Board of Inland Revenue when he appeared before Portof- Spain First Court Magistrate Christine Charles. Alibey of Cleaver Heights, Arima will be sentenced next week Tuesday.

Alibey, as director of Agro Aggressive Organisation and Maintenance Services, received a government 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 for 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 VAT-able 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.

Only registered persons can lawfully seek to recover VAT in accordance with the VAT Act.

Under Section 23(2) of the Act, any person who is not registered and who recovers or seeks to recover tax, is liable on summary conviction to a fine of $50,000 and imprisonment for three years.

In his plea of mitigation before the court, Alibey’s lawyer Joseph Honore said that his client, a father of four, who attended Queen’s Royal College and played football at the secondary school level and the National under 15 and 19 levels, was given bad advice but had cooperated fully with the authorities and is willing to make amends. Honore said the experience was a traumatic one for Alibey, who has strong ties to his community. The lawyer said when the LifeSport scandal erupted, Alibey lost his job and suffered tremendously as his life came to a standstill.

“This scandal left him with a level of uncertainty,” Honore said. Magistrate Charles indicated that she wanted an opportunity to look at the documents presented to her before she sentences Alibey.

Attorney Evans Welch prosecuted on behalf of the BIR and Rawle Sookhoo Criminal Tax Investigator II, who was named as the complainant in the matter. In October, a High Court judge quashed a damning 2014 audit report into the controversial LifeSport programme, which led to the immediate termination of the programme.