Laws set out and reg­u­late the du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of peo­ple and di­rect the in­ter­ac­tion be­tween them. Laws are shaped by a giv­en time and con­text and can­not cater to every sit­u­a­tion. When cir­cum­stances change and re­al­i­ty ex­ceeds the le­gal pro­vi­sions, con­flicts will re­sult. When the con­flict in­volves high of­fice­hold­ers, ma­ture states­man­ship and re­spect­ful en­gage­ment are re­quired, not ex­pen­sive le­gal gun­fights fund­ed by the pub­lic purse. 

The flur­ry of pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters be­tween the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, and the Fi­nance Min­is­ter has dam­aged the re­la­tion­ship be­tween par­ties that ought nev­er to fight. The an­nounce­ment of a probe sanc­tioned by Cab­i­net in which the Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter and the Fi­nance Min­is­ter are the same and its one-sided terms of ref­er­ence rais­es ques­tions for more dis­cern­ing minds. Un­der­stand­ably, it elicit­ed a re­sponse for in­junc­tive re­lief by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, there­by en­larg­ing the dis­pute. 

The furore has de­gen­er­at­ed in­to a blame game, politi­cis­ing is­sues that re­quire a ma­ture, ra­tio­nal ap­proach. This my­opic be­hav­iour could erode con­fi­dence in the in­sti­tu­tions that up­hold our democ­ra­cy and raise ques­tions about the coun­try’s cred­it­wor­thi­ness with in­ter­na­tion­al lenders. The sit­u­a­tion cries out for ma­ture states­man­ship and re­spect­ful en­gage­ment to pro­vide sus­tain­able so­lu­tions, there­by re­duc­ing the strain on pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions and the pub­lic purse.

Politi­cians every­where tend to avoid deal­ing with the re­al is­sue by re­sort­ing to blame, ad hominem per­son­al at­tacks, ob­fus­ca­tion, and dis­trac­tion. The prob­lem that gen­er­at­ed this im­passe be­tween the Fi­nance Min­is­ter and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al is a ma­te­r­i­al un­der­state­ment in the rev­enue state­ment in the pub­lic ac­counts amount­ing to $3.4 bil­lion. This “er­ror” was on­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al in late March. Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter dat­ed May 15, writ­ten by the at­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing the Fi­nance Min­is­ter, $2.6 bil­lion had been rec­on­ciled by April 5.  

This let­ter notes that the un­der­state­ment of rev­enue …” was due to post­ing er­rors, in­clud­ing dou­ble book­ing of trans­ac­tions and dec­i­mal point trans­po­si­tion er­rors aris­ing as a re­sult of the new Elec­tron­ic Cheque Clear­ing Sys­tem at the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go as well as the Go Any­where Sys­tem, which re­placed the pre­sen­ta­tion of phys­i­cal cheques for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. This dis­cov­ery in March, six months af­ter the end of the fi­nan­cial year and two months af­ter the Jan­u­ary 31 sub­mis­sion dead­line, im­plies sub­stan­tial pro­ce­dur­al and sys­temic flaws. This would raise red flags and doubts con­cern­ing the ac­cu­ra­cy of the pub­lic ac­counts for any au­di­tor. 

Prepar­ing the pub­lic ac­counts is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Min­istry of Fi­nance. The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to ex­er­cise the nec­es­sary skill and care in ex­am­in­ing all books and records to ex­press an opin­ion there­on. The of­fice is a safe­guard for the pub­lic in­ter­est, not a rub­ber stamp for the Fi­nance Min­istry or Cab­i­net. The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al is a crea­ture of statute and can­not form an opin­ion un­til a com­plete set of doc­u­ments is pre­sent­ed, with­in the time lim­it. The cu­mu­la­tive ef­fect of these er­rors, in­ad­ver­tent or oth­er­wise, on the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s de­lib­er­a­tions has been ig­nored in the min­is­ter’s at­tempt to as­cribe blame. What did the AG’s pro­to­col let­ter threat­en that in­flamed ten­sions? 

The pub­lic ac­counts are one mech­a­nism for ex­ec­u­tive ac­count­abil­i­ty for the coun­try’s rev­enue and ex­pen­di­ture. There­fore, the em­pha­sis should be on the ac­cu­ra­cy of the process­es and sys­tems that gen­er­ate those num­bers. In­di­vid­ual egos are of no im­por­tance in the scheme of things.