Suriname’s Finance and Planning Minister Armand Achaibersing resigns

Suriname’s Minister of Finance and Planning Armand Achaibersing has resigned, President Chan Santokhi confirmed on Thursday.

Santokhi said Achaibersing had stepped aside for “a strictly personal reason.”

In a statement, he said, “out of respect for the privacy and personal circumstances of Minister Achaibersing, this issue has been handled with care.”

The resignation letter was sent to President Santokhi on August 13.

“The head of state has indicated to Minister Achaibersing that the letter will be treated with the most urgent attention and that the minister’s personal situation is certainly understood.

“No decision has been made by the president about accepting the offered resignation because this unforeseen situation must be carefully considered with all due care and from different angles,” the statement from the president said.

In the meantime, the government has asked the public to respect Achaibersing’s private circumstances and await further word on the matter.

A major fraud scandal in which millions of dollars (One SR$-US$0.04 cent) had been withdrawn from the bank account of the Ministry of Finance and Planning through forged documents and receipts was uncovered last month.

The authorities said a total of SR$40.9 million had been withdrawn from the account in April and June, with the perpetrators presenting false documents to the Central Bank of Suriname (CBvS) for cash.

The government confirmed the withdrawal after NDP legislator Melvin Bouva raised the issue in Parliament.

Minister Armand Achaibersing said the investigation has so far revealed that the payment orders did not come from the system of the ministry.

“What happened is that the perpetrators scanned real payment documents and then changed the amounts, as well as the name of the recipient and his bank account number.”

The false papers were then presented to the CBvS between authentic payment documents, where the irregularities were only discovered on the fourth occasion. On the three previous occasions, the perpetrators managed to receive SR$46,909,602.42, the minister said.

Suriname’s main opposition National Democratic Party has been calling for the resignation of the finance and planning minister, saying he cannot be trusted with the nation’s wallet.