PARAMARIBO, Suriname (CMC) — The human rights organisation, Allied Collective (AC), says it has written the United States Congress requesting assistance in finding out which prominent Surinamese citizens own property and money in the United States.

AC chairman Robert Hewitt said the organisation is specifically interested in current and past politicians and directors of government-owned companies who may have earned money through corruption. “Depending on the response we receive, we will send a list to Congress of people we think may have duped the people of Suriname,” said Hewitt.

He said his organisation is also keen on finding out whether it is true that there is a joint account at a bank in Switzerland, holding more than US$700 million stashed away by Surinamese nationals.

“If it is true that belongings of the people of Suriname have been carried and stashed away, they must be repossessed. It cannot be that people enrich themselves over the back of the community, without there being any consequences to that,” said Hewitt.

He hinted that the current economic crisis may stand as an example of how a country can be caused to suffer as a result of corruption.

“If we had access to all this stolen money we would have had something to fall back on. But as it stands, we cannot even pay for the maintenance of our hospitals and the country is weighed down by skyrocketing prices, while a group of people have become richer. With money and goods from the community,” he said.

The AC chairman said it is possible to get back money stolen from the state.

He said Brazil was able to reclaim an estimated US$120 million that had been pilfered through oil company Petrobas and sluiced abroad.

Suriname has been rocked by several corruption scandals in recent years. Two made major headlines.

In June 2013, former public works minister Ramon Abrahams took a local magazine to court over the publication’s “detailed account” of his “dealings from his 2010 swearing-in to his dismissal in June 2013. Last year, three directors at the state-owned utility company EBS were suspended, and two later arrested in connection with a “mega fraud case”, as part of which some Euro12 million (One Euro =US$1.29 cents) had been swindled.

Abrahams was sacked by President Desi Bouterse in 2013, but he remains a prominent figure in the President’s National Democratic Party. The two directors at EBS who had been arrested have meanwhile been sacked from the company, while the third was reinstated a few months ago.