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Friday, July 11, 2025

Contentious Auditor General Report up as Houses resume Monday

by

Gail Alexander
309 days ago
20240906
A pedestrian walks past the Red House last Friday. Parliament resumes on Monday.

A pedestrian walks past the Red House last Friday. Parliament resumes on Monday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

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.


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