Tax­pay­ers are en­ti­tled to full and trans­par­ent ac­count­ing for the ex­pen­di­ture of pub­lic funds. This be­comes more crit­i­cal when there is a dis­crep­an­cy of $2.6 bil­lion, as is the case with the dis­pute in which Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour and Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass are em­broiled.

All the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters, le­gal threats be­ing trad­ed, and po­lit­i­cal claims and coun­ter­claims shroud­ing the is­sue, make it dif­fi­cult to ar­rive at a full and speedy res­o­lu­tion, which would be best for all in­volved.

The wran­gling over the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s 2023 re­port is be­ing waged in full pub­lic glare, in a way that could neg­a­tive­ly im­pact T&T’s cred­it rat­ings and fi­nan­cial im­age if al­lowed to spin fur­ther out of con­trol.

For that rea­son, the fo­cus should be on ar­riv­ing at the truth, with cool­er heads all around, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause these al­le­ga­tions of a ma­te­r­i­al mis­state­ment in the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s sub­mit­ted au­dit for 2023 can neg­a­tive­ly im­pact three of the coun­try’s se­nior of­fice hold­ers.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s crit­i­cal role in the au­dit and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of T&T’s pub­lic ac­counts in a man­ner that en­sures ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy has come un­der scruti­ny, and she is well with­in her right to pro­tect the in­tegri­ty of her of­fice.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, this is­sue has erupt­ed just a few months in­to Ms Ram­dass’ term, as she was ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion just a few months ago, No­vem­ber 15, 2023.

How­ev­er, she is a high­ly qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­al who worked in a “Big Four” au­dit firm be­fore join­ing the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment in 1994 and in her many years of pub­lic ser­vice, she has func­tioned in key po­si­tions.

But the mat­ter is al­so draw­ing some at­ten­tion to the Fi­nance Min­istry and its bud­getary func­tions.

In a state­ment in Par­lia­ment, Min­is­ter Im­bert said his min­istry’s of­fi­cials had de­tect­ed the vari­ance and un­der­state­ment of the rev­enue for 2023 re­port­ed by the Trea­sury to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, and at­trib­uted it in part to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a new elec­tron­ic cheque-clear­ing sys­tem.

This is a mat­ter that cries out for a trans­par­ent and in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion — tax­pay­ers de­serve no less than the full truth in an is­sue in­volv­ing such a sig­nif­i­cant amount of pub­lic funds.

How­ev­er, even get­ting to that point is prov­ing to be dif­fi­cult, as the team ap­point­ed to in­ves­ti­gate, led by re­tired Jus­tice David Har­ris — oth­er mem­bers are for­mer au­dit di­rec­tor David Ben­jamin and In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy spe­cial­ists from Nor­way — has been chal­lenged by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al's at­tor­neys.

The lawyers claim the in­ves­tiga­tive team is tres­pass­ing on the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) and have sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter ar­gu­ing this.

This new de­vel­op­ment casts doubt not on­ly over the va­lid­i­ty of the in­ves­tiga­tive team but every as­pect of this mat­ter, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult to get time­ly an­swers to the ques­tions about the man­age­ment of the pub­lic purse that have been raised.

There has been so much sabre-rat­tling and po­lit­i­cal pos­tur­ing that it is nec­es­sary to re­mind all con­cerned about the con­sid­er­able na­tion­al in­ter­ests in­volved.

Prop­er fi­nan­cial au­dit­ing pro­to­cols and pro­ce­dures must be fol­lowed. How­ev­er, it is al­so the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of every pub­lic of­fi­cial in­volved in this con­tentious is­sue, as well as their le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives, to en­sure the in­ter­ests of T&T’s tax­pay­ers are pro­tect­ed.

This is what they should be guid­ed by in seek­ing out the full facts in this mat­ter.