The Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go said yes­ter­day it did not stop the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al from au­dit­ing the ac­counts of the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tor.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia ques­tions, the Cen­tral Bank said it was the Of­fi­cer of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al that opt­ed not to ac­cept the as­sign­ment to au­dit the Cen­tral Bank ac­counts.

Asked why did the Cen­tral Bank end the long-stand­ing re­la­tion­ship by which the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al au­dit­ed the Bank’s ac­count, the Cen­tral Bank said, “The Of­fice of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al in­di­cat­ed that it would not be in a po­si­tion to ac­cept an ap­point­ment as au­di­tor for the fi­nan­cial state­ments of the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024.”

Asked whether the de­ci­sion to end the re­la­tion­ship with the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s de­part­ment was linked to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­quest for in­for­ma­tion on the “miss­ing” rev­enue, the Cen­tral Bank re­ferred to its re­sponse to the first ques­tion.

The Cen­tral Bank said on Sun­day that BDO T&T re­placed the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al as the ex­ter­nal au­di­tor of the Bank for the fi­nan­cial year be­gin­ning Oc­to­ber 1, 2023. BDO T&T’s ini­tial en­gage­ment would have end­ed on Sep­tem­ber 30, 2024.

The Cen­tral Bank Act, at sec­tion 56 (1), states that its ac­counts “shall be au­dit­ed an­nu­al­ly by au­di­tors who shall be ap­point­ed by the Board each year with the ap­proval of the Min­is­ter (of Fi­nance).”

Asked if the Cen­tral Bank paid to have the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s de­part­ment con­duct the au­dit of its ac­counts, the Cen­tral Bank re­spond­ed, “The Cen­tral Bank does pay for that ser­vice.”

The Cen­tral Bank de­clined to pro­vide a ball­park fig­ure for the cost of BDO to au­dit its ac­counts. The Bank said the ap­point­ment of BDO was made fol­low­ing the Cen­tral Bank’s pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures.

Al­though the Cen­tral Bank Act does not spec­i­fy that the Cen­tral Bank’s ac­counts must be au­dit­ed by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, at sec­tion 56 (2) the law states, “Notwith­stand­ing sub­sec­tion (1), the Min­is­ter (of Fi­nance) may at any time re­quire the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to ex­am­ine and re­port on the ac­counts of the Bank and the Bank shall pro­vide the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al with all nec­es­sary and ap­pro­pri­ate fa­cil­i­ties for such ex­am­i­na­tion.”

The cur­rent Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, has not trig­gered sec­tion 52 (2), the Cen­tral Bank said.

At last Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor, Dr Alvin Hi­laire, of re­fus­ing to di­vulge in­for­ma­tion to the Gov­ern­ment.

“The Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor re­fus­es to di­vulge in­for­ma­tion. This is the same Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor who on two oc­ca­sions...with two suc­ces­sive Au­di­tor Gen­er­als re­ports has failed to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al. So re­mem­ber last year when we had the $2.3 bil­lion miss­ing. It was be­cause the Cen­tral Bank did not re­lease in­for­ma­tion, or al­low the Au­di­tor (Gen­er­al) to get the ac­counts to do her work. It has hap­pened again.”

The Cen­tral Bank has not, as yet, post­ed its 2024 ac­counts on its web­site. This is be­cause “the Cen­tral Bank tra­di­tion­al­ly awaits min­is­te­r­i­al lay­ing of the re­port be­fore Par­lia­ment, pri­or to web­site pub­li­ca­tion,” said the Bank.

Eight ques­tions were sent to Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, Jai­wantie Ram­dass yes­ter­day, through one of her at­tor­neys. There was no re­sponse from her up to press time.