Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wan­tee Ram­dass has is­sued a sec­ond pre-ac­tion let­ter, this time to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour.

She said yes­ter­day the at­tacks launched against her char­ac­ter by both the AG and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert, which she con­sid­ers “false, ma­li­cious, and mis­lead­ing,” leave her in doubt that the Gov­ern­ment could “fair­ly be per­mit­ted to se­lect coun­sel to rep­re­sent her”.

It was not­ed that the State has the sup­port of the AG and has re­tained three at­tor­neys, among them Dou­glas Mendes, SC, and Si­mon de la Bastide, to act on be­half of the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

How­ev­er, Ram­dass’ lawyers, not­ing she would have to hire in­de­pen­dent coun­sel to de­fend her­self, asked the AG if he would up­hold a com­mit­ment to pay­ing for that le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the mat­ter.

The let­ter came a day af­ter she al­so is­sued a pre-ac­tion let­ter to Im­bert, ask­ing him to re­tract false state­ments made about her in Par­lia­ment and to set the pub­lic record straight on the Hansard of Par­lia­ment.

On April 17, one day af­ter she re­ceived a pre-ac­tion let­ter from the Min­istry of Fi­nance over is­sues on the au­dit­ing of the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­counts, she wrote to Ar­mour seek­ing a le­gal opin­ion on Sec­tions 24 and 25 of the Ex­che­quer and Au­dit Act, Chap­ter 69:01.

How­ev­er, on April 19, Ar­mour re­spond­ed that he was al­ready ad­vis­ing the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance on the mat­ter.

“In the cir­cum­stances, it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate for me to ren­der any ad­vice to you on this mat­ter. I rec­om­mend that, with ap­pro­pri­ate ur­gency, you should re­tain in­de­pen­dent le­gal coun­sel to give you such ad­vice. I give the un­der­tak­ing that, as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, I am pre­pared to pay rea­son­able fees in­curred by you as Au­di­tor Gen­er­al for the re­ten­tion and ob­tain­ing of that in­de­pen­dent ad­vice,” Ar­mour’s let­ter stat­ed.

Five days lat­er, on April 24, Ram­dass com­plet­ed the 2023 ac­counts, which she sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

How­ev­er, she qual­i­fied the re­port with a dis­claimer and an ad­den­dum on the ac­counts, which in­clude the fact that $780,499,791.27 of rev­enue could not be ac­count­ed for.

On Feb­ru­ary 26, Im­bert did not lay the re­port be­fore Par­lia­ment but in­stead sought an ex­ten­sion.

Ram­dass, a pub­lic ser­vant, re­tained for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, to rep­re­sent her and has is­sued two pre-ac­tion let­ters to the State.

The let­ter to Ar­mour yes­ter­day not­ed, “It would ob­vi­ous­ly be equal­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate for you to ren­der any ad­vice to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al on the oth­er is­sue(s) that have since arisen in this mat­ter. There would be a se­ri­ous con­flict of in­ter­est and a strong risk of po­lit­i­cal bias.

“Giv­en that you spear­head­ed the at­tack against our client in Par­lia­ment and made state­ments which she con­sid­ers to be false, ma­li­cious, and mis­lead­ing, it is ob­vi­ous that the Gov­ern­ment, through you, can­not fair­ly be per­mit­ted to se­lect coun­sel to rep­re­sent her. This would not on­ly be man­i­fest­ly un­fair and ir­ra­tional but would com­pro­mise the in­tegri­ty and in­de­pen­dence of the of­fice of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

“Giv­en that the con­tentious mat­ters and dis­putes that have arisen be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, it is ob­vi­ous that it will be patent­ly un­fair to ask that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al ei­ther re­tains in­de­pen­dent coun­sel of her choice at her per­son­al ex­pense or that the Gov­ern­ment through the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, se­lects and im­pos­es coun­sel of his choice and lik­ing (if not po­lit­i­cal pref­er­ence), to rep­re­sent the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of po­lit­i­cal bias is ob­vi­ous.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ar­mour said he re­ferred Ram­dass’ let­ter to se­nior coun­sel for ad­vice.

Pre-Ac­tion let­ter to Ar­mour

In her le­gal let­ter to Ar­mour, by in­struct­ing at­tor­ney Aasha Ram­lal, Ram­dass again main­tained she was pro­vid­ed with two sets of pub­lic ac­counts from the Min­istry of Fi­nance, one of which was back­dat­ed and con­tained a sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er state­ment of rev­enue fig­ure.

Her mis­giv­ing came from a State­ment of De­c­la­ra­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion which opened with, “The fol­low­ing State­ments for the Fi­nan­cial Year 2023 which are statu­to­ri­ly due by Jan­u­ary 31, 2024, in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 24(1)(a) and (b) and 24 (2)(a) and (b) of the Ex­che­quer and Au­dit Act, Chap­ter 69:01 as amend­ed by Act No. 23 of 1998 are sub­mit­ted” and closed with “As Ac­count­ing Of­fi­cer, I cer­ti­fy that the Fi­nan­cial State­ments for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023 have been rec­on­ciled with the records of the Trea­sury and in my opin­ion, these Fi­nan­cial State­ments fair­ly re­flect the fi­nan­cial po­si­tion of the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the year end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023.”

“Both the orig­i­nal and amend­ed state­ments were dat­ed and signed Jan­u­ary 31, 2024. This is de­spite the er­ror, which caused the amend­ment, be­ing dis­cov­ered long af­ter Jan­u­ary 31, 2024,” the let­ter said.

The let­ter not­ed that both the AG and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance launched a scathing at­tack on Ram­dass’ char­ac­ter.

“The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al sees this as a po­lit­i­cal at­tack on the in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty of her of­fice be­cause it con­cerns the per­for­mance of her con­sti­tu­tion­al and statu­to­ry du­ties. It was al­so an at­tempt to vil­i­fy and as­sas­si­nate her per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tion. The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al is an in­de­pen­dent of­fice un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion that was de­lib­er­ate­ly in­su­lat­ed from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, in­flu­ence, and con­trol.

“The Au­di­tor Gen­er­al is con­cerned to en­sure that the in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty of the of­fice are not com­pro­mised by these un­war­rant­ed and un­jus­ti­fied po­lit­i­cal at­tacks. She wish­es to de­fend her of­fice and her­self against these ma­li­cious at­tacks and is there­fore en­ti­tled to be rep­re­sent­ed by a coun­sel­lor of her choice. As an in­de­pen­dent of­fice­hold­er un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al sits on par with the of­fice of the DPP, the Om­buds­man, and the Ser­vice Com­mis­sions, which are all sim­i­lar­ly pro­tect­ed from po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence and con­trol,” the let­ter said.

What Ram­dass sought ad­vice on

The let­ter iden­ti­fied the ar­eas where Ram­dass sought le­gal ad­vice:

1) The le­gal va­lid­i­ty of the res­o­lu­tion passed by Par­lia­ment pur­port­ing to ex­tend the time for the sub­mis­sion of the na­tion­al ac­counts and her re­port in cir­cum­stances where she has al­ready sub­mit­ted her au­dit re­port to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance;

2) The false and mis­lead­ing state­ments made in Par­lia­ment against her re­gard­ing the per­for­mance of her of­fi­cial du­ty;

3) Whether the cloak of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege could be pierced in the ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances of this case such that Mr Regi­nald Ar­mour SC and Mr Colm Im­bert can be sued for de­fam­ing the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al;

4) Whether the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance act­ed law­ful­ly in re­fus­ing to lay the Re­port of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al in Par­lia­ment when called up­on to do so by the Speak­er on Fri­day, April 26, 2024.

5) What op­tions and reme­dies in law may be open to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to have her re­port laid in Par­lia­ment and pro­tect the in­tegri­ty and in­de­pen­dence of her of­fice from the in­tru­sive po­lit­i­cal ten­ta­cles that have ap­peared;

6) The scope and re­mit of her rights un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, the act, and the laws of T&T.

“We, there­fore, write to in­quire whether you would be pre­pared to pay rea­son­able le­gal fees that would nec­es­sar­i­ly be in­curred by the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al for le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion in this mat­ter in which we have been in­struct­ed.

“Giv­en the pow­er­ful bat­tery of lawyers ad­vis­ing the State, it would be tan­ta­mount to us­ing a le­gal sledge­ham­mer to bat­ter an ant of a pub­lic of­fi­cer in­to po­lit­i­cal sub­mis­sion,” the let­ter said.

AG’s of­fice re­sponds

Yes­ter­day, the AG’s Of­fice is­sued Ram­dass a re­sponse to the le­gal let­ter, not­ing that the mat­ter has been passed on to Se­nior Coun­sel for ad­vice.

“This re­sponse is not to be un­der­stood as ac­ced­ing to your re­quest,” the let­ter said.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Ram­dass’ at­tor­ney said, “We ex­press our dis­ap­point­ment and con­cern over the fact that you ne­glect­ed to in­di­cate when the sub­stan­tive is­sue re­gard­ing le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for our client will be ad­dressed. This is ex­treme­ly un­sat­is­fac­to­ry in light of the fact that state­ments by top gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials con­tin­ue to be wide­ly pub­li­cised in the me­dia. Our client can­not rea­son­ably be ex­pect­ed to idly sit by as a lame duck that is the sub­ject of tar­get prac­tice for politi­cians.”

For his part, Im­bert has an­nounced an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ters raised by Ram­dass’ let­ter, even as the Par­lia­ment and Sen­ate agreed to ex­tend the time to present in­for­ma­tion on T&T’s 2023 ac­counts to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.