Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

A pos­si­ble res­o­lu­tion to the im­passe be­tween Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass and the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CBTT) may be on the hori­zon as both par­ties have agreed to meet to dis­cuss her re­quest to ex­am­ine the bank’s elec­tron­ic cheque-clear­ing sys­tem.

This de­vel­op­ment may please Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert, who in Par­lia­ment on Sep­tem­ber 9 hoped that such a meet­ing would put much of the ten­sions to rest.

But while Im­bert said Ram­dass had yet to set a date in re­sponse to the CBTT’s re­quest to meet, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands she has yet to re­ceive any such in­vi­ta­tion.

In a re­cent af­fi­davit, Ram­dass claimed that her abil­i­ty to per­form a prop­er au­dit and ver­i­fy the is­sues that caused a $2.6 bil­lion un­der­es­ti­ma­tion of rev­enue in the na­tion­al ac­counts was ham­pered as she was al­leged­ly blocked by the CBTT from ac­cess­ing its elec­tron­ic cheque-clear­ing sys­tem.

Yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to ques­tions posed by Guardian Me­dia, the CBTT said, “The gov­er­nor will be hap­py to meet with the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al at a mu­tu­al­ly con­ve­nient time to work out the pa­ra­me­ters of any spe­cial in­ves­ti­ga­tion that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al would like to con­duct.”

The CBTT al­so ac­knowl­edged its will­ing­ness to meet in the con­text of the im­por­tance of Ram­dass’ of­fice.

“The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Of­fice is an im­por­tant in­sti­tu­tion in con­tribut­ing to fi­nan­cial in­tegri­ty and good gov­er­nance in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Giv­en this fact, and the his­tor­i­cal re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Cen­tral Bank and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Of­fice (which con­duct­ed the Bank’s ex­ter­nal au­dit for many years),” the CBTT said via email.

Guardian Me­dia asked the CBTT if any in­vi­ta­tion or re­quest to meet had been sent to Ram­dass or her of­fice in light of in­for­ma­tion that she had not re­ceived any such cor­re­spon­dence to date.

How­ev­er, the CBTT was guard­ed in its re­sponse and said, “The Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go con­sid­ers our cor­re­spon­dence with ex­ter­nal par­ties (in­clud­ing the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Of­fice, Gov­ern­ment agen­cies, com­mer­cial banks etc) to be of a con­fi­den­tial na­ture. Our re­ply will not there­fore cite spe­cif­ic cor­re­spon­dence but pro­vides the Bank’s po­si­tion.”

Ram­dass is cur­rent­ly on va­ca­tion and out of the coun­try, but Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands she would be in­clined to such a meet­ing.

Pri­or to the CBTT’s state­ment of in­tent to meet, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned if it had some­thing to hide.

The dis­pute be­tween Ram­dass and the min­istry arose in April af­ter the Min­istry of Fi­nance sought to de­liv­er amend­ed pub­lic ac­counts to ex­plain a re­port­ed $2.6 bil­lion un­der­es­ti­ma­tion in rev­enue.

Ini­tial­ly, Ram­dass re­fused to ac­cept them and claimed that she need­ed le­gal ad­vice on whether she could re­ceive those doc­u­ments af­ter the Jan­u­ary statu­to­ry dead­line for sub­mis­sion.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al 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 orig­i­nal records.

In sub­se­quent le­gal cor­re­spon­dence be­tween the par­ties, Ram­dass claimed that her au­dit team was un­able to rec­on­cile the amend­ed records based on doc­u­ments it au­dit­ed. She al­so con­tend­ed that the amend­ed records ap­peared to be back­dat­ed to the orig­i­nal statu­to­ry dead­line in Jan­u­ary.

Ram­dass al­so took is­sue with the fact that the dis­crep­an­cy was ini­tial­ly es­ti­mat­ed at $3.4 bil­lion.

Im­bert has con­stant­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

The min­is­ter’s lawyers claimed that the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion af­ter the ini­tial es­ti­mate re­vealed that the vari­ance was in fact $2,599,278,188.72, which was at­trib­uted to Val­ue Added Tax (VAT), In­di­vid­ual, Busi­ness Levy and Green Fund Levy con­tri­bu­tions.

The at­tor­neys al­so claimed that checks in re­la­tion to the ap­prox­i­mate $780 mil­lion dif­fer­ence be­tween the ini­tial and fi­nal es­ti­mat­ed vari­ances at­trib­uted it to tax re­fund cheques to tax­pay­ers is­sued for the 2022 fi­nan­cial year be­ing cashed in the fi­nan­cial year 2023.

They blamed the er­ror on a switch from a man­u­al to an elec­tron­ic cheque-clear­ing sys­tem by the CBTT.

Im­bert’s lawyers claimed that there was no back­dat­ing as they not­ed that the al­le­ga­tion was made be­cause a doc­u­ment re­lat­ed to the orig­i­nal pub­lic ac­counts was in­ad­ver­tent­ly in­clud­ed in the re­vised doc­u­ments.

They al­so con­tend­ed that Ram­dass act­ed il­le­gal­ly in ini­tial­ly re­fus­ing to ac­cept the amend­ed ac­counts.

The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al is cur­rent­ly locked in two le­gal bat­tles with the state.

The first is over her abil­i­ty to seek in­de­pen­dent le­gal ad­vice on the im­passe be­tween her of­fice and Im­bert’s min­istry.

That case has been ad­journed to Jan­u­ary 13, 2025.

Ram­dass al­so has a pend­ing ju­di­cial re­view case over a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed probe led by re­tired judge David Har­ris, which was ini­ti­at­ed af­ter Ram­dass high­light­ed the fi­nan­cial dis­crep­an­cy in her an­nu­al re­port.

Jus­tice West­min James re­fused Ram­dass leave to pur­sue her case, but his de­ci­sion was sub­se­quent­ly over­turned by the Ap­peal Court.

The Cab­i­net lodged a fi­nal ap­peal over the pre­lim­i­nary is­sue which is ex­pect­ed to be heard by the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil in ear­ly No­vem­ber.

Ram­dass is rep­re­sent­ed by Se­nior Coun­sel, Anand Ram­lo­gan.