Ke­jan Haynes

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

ke­jan.hanynes@guardian.co.tt

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says Cab­i­net is not pre­pared to can­cel or re­call the in­ves­ti­ga­tion led by David Har­ris and David Ben­jamin in­to the dis­pute be­tween the Fi­nance Min­istry and Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass.

Im­bert gave the re­sponse through his lawyer Jo-Anne Julien yes­ter­day, in re­ply to a le­gal let­ter from Ram­dass’ at­tor­neys, who had called the in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and il­le­gal be­cause nei­ther the min­is­ter nor Cab­i­net had con­sti­tu­tion­al ju­ris­dic­tion and law­ful au­thor­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate the ac­tion and con­duct of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al out­side sec­tion 136 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

In her re­ply, Im­bert’s at­tor­ney said Sec­tion 136 of the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for the re­moval of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al from of­fice by the Pres­i­dent on the ad­vice of a tri­bunal. How­ev­er, Julien, of M.G. Daly and Part­ners, said that was not the pur­pose of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and the in­ves­ti­gat­ing team was al­so not be­ing tasked with ex­er­cis­ing dis­ci­pli­nary con­trol over pub­lic of­fi­cers.

The let­ter said the pur­pose of the in­ves­ti­gat­ing team com­mis­sioned by the Gov­ern­ment was to “in­ves­ti­gate an er­ror in the pub­lic ac­counts sub­mit­ted to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al re­sult­ing in an un­der­state­ment of rev­enue in the amount of $2,599,278,188.72, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s ini­tial re­fusal to con­sid­er that er­ror af­ter it was dis­cov­ered and her rea­sons for re­fus­ing to do so, the se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tion that pub­lic ac­counts sub­mit­ted to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al were back­dat­ed and oth­er grave al­le­ga­tions made by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al in re­la­tion to those ac­counts, and that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al is­sued an au­dit re­port in re­spect of the pub­lic ac­counts sub­mit­ted to her which con­tained a dis­claimer.”

“To the ex­tent that the Terms of Ref­er­ence may re­quire the In­ves­ti­ga­tion Team to in­ves­ti­gate the con­duct of your client, any find­ings made by the team in that re­gard will not be bind­ing on the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic or any tri­bunal set up un­der sec­tion 136,” Julien stat­ed.

“To the ex­tent that the In­ves­ti­ga­tion Team makes any find­ings with re­spect to the con­duct of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, the most that might be done is that such find­ings might be passed on by the Prime Min­is­ter to the Pres­i­dent for con­sid­er­a­tion in de­cid­ing whether the ques­tion of re­mov­ing the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed.”

Julien said Cab­i­net would be fail­ing in its du­ty to the coun­try if it did not en­sure the mat­ters were in­ves­ti­gat­ed by an in­de­pen­dent team. She said the hope was that in fu­ture, these er­rors and cir­cum­stances would be avoid­ed. She said it is al­so hoped the in­ves­ti­ga­tion would “de­ter­mine the facts sur­round­ing the al­le­ga­tions made by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al in re­la­tion to the pub­lic ac­counts sub­mit­ted to her so that in the event they are found to be valid or sup­port­ed by cred­i­ble ev­i­dence, the ap­pro­pri­ate steps may be tak­en.”

In Ram­dass’ le­gal let­ter to Im­bert, she claimed bias by him in ap­point­ing an in­ves­tiga­tive team.

Im­bert’s lawyer said she didn’t un­der­stand the claim of bias, since the team com­pris­es in­de­pen­dent per­sons, in­clud­ing a for­mer High Court judge.

“You have al­so sug­gest­ed that the bias of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance against your client in this mat­ter is such that he is pre­clud­ed from ap­point­ing in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tors to in­ves­ti­gate this mat­ter. You are re­mind­ed that while it is the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance who rec­om­mend­ed the ap­point­ment of the team to Cab­i­net, it is the Cab­i­net which made the de­ci­sion to ap­point the team. In any event, you have not sug­gest­ed that any mem­ber of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion team is af­fect­ed by bias nor have you sug­gest­ed that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion team is not in­de­pen­dent,” Julien said.

Julien con­clud­ed that there is no rea­son to be­lieve Ram­dass would not be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to the mat­ters the in­ves­ti­gat­ing team is prob­ing but not­ed that whether she de­cides to do so would be en­tire­ly up to her.