Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

De­spite their bat­tles in the court, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert says the re­la­tion­ship be­tween him­self, Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, Jai­wantie Ram­dass and staff at the of­fi­cer re­mains, “re­spect­ful and co­op­er­a­tive.”

Min­is­ter Im­bert told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the con­tro­ver­sial $2.6 bil­lion 2023 rev­enue dis­crep­an­cy im­passe was, “nev­er any re­al is­sue, it was a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion as to whether the cor­rec­tions to the ac­counts that the pub­lic ser­vants want­ed to put in could be ad­mit­ted.”

The dis­pute be­tween Ram­dass and the Min­istry of Fi­nance arose in April last year af­ter the min­istry sought to de­liv­er amend­ed pub­lic ac­counts for 2023, which at­tempt­ed to ex­plain a re­port­ed $2.6 bil­lion un­der­es­ti­ma­tion in rev­enue. Ram­dass ini­tial­ly re­fused re­ceipt as she claimed that she need­ed le­gal ad­vice on whether she could ac­cept them af­ter the Jan­u­ary statu­to­ry dead­line for sub­mis­sion.

Ram­dass even­tu­al­ly ac­cept­ed the records and dis­patched au­dit staff to ver­i­fy them. She then sub­mit­ted her orig­i­nal an­nu­al re­port to Par­lia­ment, which was based on the ini­tial records.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter the sod-turn­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the con­struc­tion of the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion head­quar­ters in St Clair, Min­is­ter Im­bert said he was mere­ly try­ing to help his staff.

“So re­al­ly what hap­pened is that the pub­lic ser­vants came to me in des­per­a­tion and said they were try­ing to present the cor­rec­tions to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al was not tak­ing their calls, mes­sages or emails. I had a choice, I could’ve as Min­is­ter said look that is your prob­lem, that is your er­ror, you cre­at­ed this mis­take, stand on your own two feet. But, I have to work with the pub­lic ser­vants in the Min­istry of Fi­nance and they lit­er­al­ly plead­ed with me to give the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al a call and that is all I did. I just called and said give them more time and that’s it and it es­ca­lat­ed in­to this whole thing,” Im­bert ex­plained.

Min­is­ter Im­bert said the re­la­tion­ship be­tween him and Ram­dass is now very re­spect­ful.

In fact, he said there was a sil­ver lin­ing com­ing out of what tran­spired.

“One of the good things to come out of this is that pub­lic ser­vants are be­ing far more metic­u­lous now than they were be­fore. Cer­tain things they would have tak­en for grant­ed, this whole thing has ex­posed weak­ness­es and de­fi­cien­cies in the way they ap­proach their work, so they are on their P’s and Q’s right now, which is a good thing,” he said.

In No­vem­ber 2024, when the Privy Coun­cil dis­missed an ap­peal brought by Im­bert and the Cab­i­net against Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Ram­dass, re­lat­ed to the un­der­state­ment, La­dy Sim­ler, one mem­ber of the five-judge pan­el ques­tioned why Im­bert’s con­duct in the mat­ter was al­so not un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Yes­ter­day, Im­bert said, “I don’t think all the facts were pre­sent­ed to the Privy Coun­cil, be­cause they were not told about the orig­i­nal terms of ref­er­ence where an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to my­self was pro­posed but that’s a dead mat­ter. The Privy Coun­cil has dealt with it based on what was pre­sent­ed to them but they were not told that the orig­i­nal terms of ref­er­ence in­clud­ed a pro­pos­al that my be­hav­iour be in­ves­ti­gat­ed as well.”

He fur­ther ex­plained, “I gave no ad­vice on that mat­ter. Again the de­fen­dants in that mat­ter were the Cab­i­net, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the lawyers de­cid­ed to go on a pure point of law. When you ar­gue a case like that you can ar­gue on pure point of law, or you can ar­gue facts and the lawyers were adamant that this is a pure point of law. When you are ar­gu­ing a pure point of law you can­not put it in any facts.

“So, if you look at the pa­pers you will see I did not put in an af­fi­davit and that was on the ad­vice of my lawyers, don’t put in ev­i­dence be­cause then it would move from a point of law to a point of law and point of fact. The Privy Coun­cil de­cid­ed there were facts in­side of there but there was noth­ing from me to coun­ter­act the oth­er sub­mis­sions, but that’s a dead mat­ter.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Ram­dass yes­ter­day who had no com­ment on Min­is­ter Im­bert’s state­ment re­gard­ing their re­la­tion­ship.

The Privy Coun­cil had grant­ed Ram­dass the green light to con­tin­ue her law­suit over a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed probe in­to the han­dling of a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of rev­enue in the na­tion­al ac­counts.

Her at­tor­ney Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.