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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Toby Vue

'Don't create a nightmare': Calls played in govt fraud trial

Raminder Singh Kahlon and Abdul Aziz El-Debel outside the ACT courts building on Tuesday. Pictures: Toby Vue

Phone calls in an alleged conspiracy against the Department of Finance for personal gains included heated discussions with one man telling another to "don't f---en worry ... get on with the job" and "don't create a double cross".

Abdul "Alex" Aziz El-Debel and Raminder Singh Kahlon are charged with conspiring to dishonestly obtain a gain from the Commonwealth, to which they have pleaded not guilty, between March 2019 and June 2020.

The pair is accused of working with another man, Gopalakrishnan Suryanarayanan Vilayur, to corrupt the Department of Finance's IT procurement processes to favour candidates at New Horizons Business Solutions and Algoram.

The two businesses are respectively owned by Kahlon, in his 30s, and Vilayur, in his 50s.

Following the awarding of contracts, which one of the defence lawyers said was "only a very small proportion" of the $25 million worth of contracts on offer at the time, the trio allegedly shared in the profit margins the businesses received.

El-Debel and Kahlon fronted the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday for week two of a scheduled four-week trial.

A series of recorded March 2020 phone calls involving Kahlon, Vilayur and two other men were played to the court.

Among the issues discussed were potential candidates and their locations and citizenship statuses. Other topics were positions, selection criteria, fees and margins.

One of the accused said he would focus on "project management, project administrators, schedulers" and told the other to focus on "below the line" matters.

"This is what you can engineer ... I can engineer the others," he said.

The court also heard one of the men questioning if a connection between candidates and Algoram would look "dodgy at this point in time".

At times, the conversations between them became heated, with Vilayur saying "don't f---en worry ... get on with the job".

He also told Kahlon to "don't f---en create a nightmare for me".

"Don't create a double cross and f--- everyone in the process," he said.

In a call with another man, Kahlon told him "to make it a sure shot, we have to go through Algoram".

Towards the end of that conversation, the man told Kahlon: "I support you, I trust you".

"So please do your magic, do what you've got to do," he said.

"We're in partnership ... so I win if you win."

Some parts of the recordings between Kahlon and Vilayur have been translated from Hindi to English for the jury.

Last week following opening addresses, phone recordings involving El-Debel were heard.

In October 2019 calls, he told Vilayur he needed "someone to work with you and bring my integration - f---en all that plan together".

"Too many people falling over each other right now," El-Debel said.

"You got to put all the right people in the right jobs, you know what I'm saying don't you"?

In another call, Vilayur told El-Debel he received news that "none of your candidates have been successful".

Vilayur then said if "everyone comes to Algoram, then they'll say this is all biased, this is all fixed".

El-Debel responded with: "What I'm looking for now is one company to give me resources".

"I want to focus on the resources, not the company," he said.

The recordings last week also included a discussion between Kahlon and Vilayur about sums of money, including up to $200,000.

Barrister Matthew Kalyk, representing Kahlon, said the evidence would show the prosecution could not establish the trio conspired.

Prosecutor David Staehli SC said the Commonwealth's case was a circumstantial one and that the proceeds alleged to have been obtained could not be calculated.

Mr Staehli last week clarified to the jury that the $25 million figure related to only the value of the Finance Department's contracts at the time.

The trial, which started on June 6, is set to have witnesses give evidence on Wednesday.

More phone recordings, which total about 24 hours, are scheduled to be played afterwards.

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