Both the Senate and House of Representatives resume with back-to-back sittings on Monday, after their mid-year recess.
The House will obtain 68 reports, including the Auditor General’s Special Report on T&T’s public accounts for 2023. The House will also debate a proposed law for T&T to meet Global Forum and other obligations.
The Senate will continue the debate on the controversial bill to fuse the departments of chief state solicitor and solicitor general into one civil law department in the Attorney General’s Ministry.
The Senate meets at 10 am and the House meets at 1.30 pm. Both Houses of Parliament have been on annual recess since July 5 and July 3 respectively.
The resumption also comes at the end of Parliament’s fourth session. The fifth and final session of the five-year term begins September 13.
Among the reports being laid in the House is the first annual Report of the Office of Procurement Regulation from April 26, 2023, to April 25, 202. It will be the first since the public sector procurement law began.
The Auditor General’s Special Report on the Public Accounts for 2023 is expected to be the supplementary report to the Auditor General’s report on T&T’s Public Accounts for 2023, which was laid in May.
The Special Report arises from issues concerning T&T’s 2023 accounts which occurred between the Finance Ministry and Auditor General in April. Both clashed over the understatement of $2.6 billion of this country’s revenue in the Auditor General 2023 report.
The deadline for Finance Division to submit accounts to the Auditor General for the 2023 report was January 31 this year. The ministry had sought to have the Auditor General include the $2.6B in the 2023 accounts, after it was located by Finance Division officials in February. The late discovery was due to issues with the Central Bank’s new electronic cheque-clearing system.
The Auditor General was said to have initially refused but subsequently accepted the information. However, the revenue wasn’t included in the Auditor General’s 2023 report which was sent to Parliament in April. Finance Minister Colm Imbert refused to lay the report in Parliament. Government then changed the law to extend the time to present information to the Auditor General and the time for reports to be prepared and submitted. The clash of authorities prompted an investigation by the ministry and court action by the Auditor General.
Also on Monday, Imbert will pilot a bill to amend 17 laws in order for T&T to meet international obligations with the Global Forum and Financial Action Task Force.
In March 2024, Global Forum experts visited T&T to discuss the progress achieved and remaining challenges in the implementation of the standards on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes. They provided technical support in preparation for this country’s subsequent second-round peer review on transparency and exchange of information on request. This was scheduled to be in the second quarter of 2024. The Global Forum is the leading multilateral body mandated to ensure that jurisdictions adhere to and effectively implement the standard of transparency and exchange of information on request.
The bill will amend laws ranging from business, companies and tax information agreements to corruption prevention and crime. Incomplete bills and matters will be carried into the next session.
Bill on Legal Affairs returns to Senate
In the Senate, 33 papers and reports will be laid.
Debate is expected to resume on an act to amend the Constitution - Judicial and Legal Service Act, Chap 6:01; the Children Act, Chap 46:01; the Patents Act, Chap 82:76 and the Legal Profession Act, Chap 90:03 concerning the administration of the Ministry of Legal Affairs and for related matters.
That bill seeks to fuse the departments of chief state solicitor and solicitor general into one civil law department, with provisions for children’s attorneys and for effective management by chambers. It intends to create a registrar general’s department separately in the ministry, with the registrar general as the chief legal officer.
The bill elicited concerns from Opposition Senator Wade Mark when first piloted in the Senate.