At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour said yes­ter­day that he gave Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass an un­der­tak­ing that he was pre­pared to pay her le­gal fees for in­de­pen­dent coun­sel on a spe­cif­ic mat­ter she sought his ad­vice on - but the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Free­dom Cham­bers, wants Ar­mour to do more than that.

“I re­it­er­at­ed my com­mit­ment to pay le­gal fees for that which the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al had re­quest­ed and be­yond that, I’m not pre­pared to com­mit the pub­lic purse to any more fees,” Ar­mour said dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at White­hall, Port-of-Spain, where the lat­est le­gal re­sponse from Ram­dass was dealt with.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s le­gal ac­tion has claimed that her rights have been breached. She is seek­ing pro­tec­tion un­der the law, plus pay­ment of le­gal fees for ad­vice to nav­i­gate the “mul­ti­ple le­gal is­sues” that have arisen. This, fol­low­ing Gov­ern­ment’s re­fusal to present her 2023 re­port to Par­lia­ment in April and its move to amend Sec­tions 24 and 25 of the Ex­che­quer and Au­dit (E&A) Act to ex­tend the time to send in­for­ma­tion on the 2023 ac­counts to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al by four months.

The im­passe arose be­cause the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s 2023 re­port didn’t in­clude a $2.6 bil­lion sum that was sent in amend­ed state­ments by Fi­nance Min­istry di­vi­sion of­fi­cials af­ter the 2023 ac­counts state­ments were de­liv­ered to her at the Jan­u­ary 31, 2024 dead­line. The $2.6B dis­cov­ered in Feb­ru­ary, was un­der­stat­ed due to dif­fi­cul­ties with the Cen­tral Bank’s new elec­tron­ic cheque-clear­ing sys­tem.

On the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s le­gal ac­tion, Ar­mour re­it­er­at­ed the crux of the mat­ter - the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s April 17 let­ter mak­ing a spe­cif­ic re­quest for le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. This, he said, was for an opin­ion on Sec­tions 24 and 25 of the E&A Act and if her of­fice was re­quired to con­sid­er the amend­ed ac­counts n light of those sec­tions.

Ar­mour said he took le­gal ad­vice on that and replied to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al on April 19 that he was al­ready ad­vis­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert on the mat­ter. Gov­ern­ment had al­ready had to send the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter on the is­sue of the ac­counts. In the cir­cum­stances, Ar­mour said he told the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al it would have been in­ap­pro­pri­ate for him to ren­der any ad­vice to her on the mat­ter and rec­om­mend­ed she re­tain in­de­pen­dent le­gal coun­sel. He said he gave the un­der­tak­ing to pay rea­son­able fees in­curred by Ram­dass for ob­tain­ing such ad­vice.

Af­ter that, Ar­mour said he had no fur­ther word from the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

On April 24, Ar­mour said he was ad­vised that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s “pur­port­ed re­port” for 2023 was sent to the Par­lia­ment.

“Sub­se­quent to that, I re­ceived a let­ter from Mr Anand Ram­lo­gan’s cham­bers mak­ing a num­ber of al­le­ga­tions against me, in­clud­ing the fact I was be­ing called on, con­sis­tent with my ear­li­er promise, to pro­vide for the le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of his Free­dom Law cham­bers.”

Ar­mour said he replied to Ram­lo­gan in an April 29 let­ter. That point­ed out that it had been rec­om­mend­ed to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to re­tain in­de­pen­dent coun­sel to give ad­vice on her query over whether she was re­quired to con­sid­er the amend­ed ac­counts state­ments in light of Sec­tions 24-25 of the E&A Act.

Ar­mour re­sponse stat­ed that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Min­istry had been pre­pared to pay rea­son­able fees in­curred by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to get that ad­vice. The re­ply al­so not­ed that it was clear the rec­om­men­da­tion was spe­cif­ic, re­lat­ed and con­fined sole­ly to the ad­vice sought by Ram­dass in her April 17 let­ter — and not in re­spect of any oth­er ad­vice or mat­ter.

Facts will come out

Ar­mour said he was re­peat­ing the con­tent of those let­ters yes­ter­day, “... To put it be­yond doubt that in so far as it’s be­ing re­port­ed that I’ve re­fused, as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, to pay for le­gal fees for the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al - that is not cor­rect.”

He said, “I was very clear through­out my cor­re­spon­dence re­gard­ing my will­ing­ness to pay the rea­son­able le­gal costs con­cern­ing re­ten­tion of coun­sel for the ad­vice sought by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, and any re­ports to the con­trary are er­ro­neous—and I fear, de­lib­er­ate­ly to mis­lead.”

Ar­mour said the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al wrote him with a spe­cif­ic re­quest for le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“I told her I was ad­vis­ing the Fi­nance Min­is­ter—I couldn’t ad­vise her. I en­cour­aged her in very clear lan­guage to pro­ceed ur­gent­ly to re­tain in­de­pen­dent le­gal coun­sel from whom she could take ad­vice on the spe­cif­ic mat­ter she’d sought my ad­vice. I gave the un­der­tak­ing I’d be pre­pared to pay her le­gal fees for re­ten­tion of such ad­vice.

“Since then, I’ve re­ceived cor­re­spon­dence from Mr Ram­lo­gan’s cham­bers re­quir­ing me to do more than that and I’ve made it very clear I have a du­ty to make sure the pub­lic purse is man­aged re­spon­si­bly. I re­it­er­at­ed my com­mit­ment to pay le­gal fees for that which the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al re­quest­ed—an opin­ion on the true con­struc­tions of Sec­tions 24-25 of the Ex­che­quer and Au­dit Act – and be­yond that I’m not pre­pared to com­mit the pub­lic purse to any more fees.”

Ar­mour said the Fi­nance Min­is­ter had dis­closed the full true facts of the mat­ter, ”and it will, at the end of the day, be ven­ti­lat­ed in the court­room ....”