Econ­o­mist, Pro­fes­sor Roger Ho­sein, is wary of the fall­out be­tween the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al and the Fi­nance Min­is­ter over the $2.6 bil­lion un­der­state­ment of the coun­try’s rev­enue in 2023.

Speak­ing Mon­day, Pro­fes­sor Ho­sein stat­ed that the im­broglio can erode pub­lic con­fi­dence in fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions ahead of tur­bu­lent eco­nom­ic times be­ing fore­cast.

“My con­cern al­so spans in­to the medi­um term be­cause a 25 per cent fall in gas will lead to a sharp re­duc­tion in rev­enue and as­so­ci­at­ed rev­enues in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor, feed­back in­to the labour force par­tic­i­pa­tion rate and a host of oth­er vari­ables... I hope this mat­ter can be re­solved in a quick and ef­fi­cient man­ner,” he said.

Last Fri­day, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter laid the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port in Par­lia­ment. Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert fur­ther main­tained that claims sug­gest­ing the min­istry back­dat­ed ac­counts were false.

While Im­bert has ques­tioned Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass’ han­dling of the mat­ter, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al has ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion against the State.

Ho­sein stressed while he has not yet pe­rused the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port, the mat­ter must be re­solved ur­gent­ly. “What would the pub­lic ex­pect to see in the next four years when nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion, ac­cord­ing to some of the num­bers out­lined by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny by the En­er­gy Cham­ber, is ex­pect­ed to fall. We are go­ing to need to work to­geth­er with cred­i­ble num­bers that can help out­line the truth and help pol­i­cy mak­ers de­sign in­ter­ven­tions to counter the sit­u­a­tions in var­i­ous ways,” he added.

A probe is un­der­way in­to the dis­pute be­tween the Fi­nance Min­istry and Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

Mid-may, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said Cab­i­net was not pre­pared to can­cel or re­call the in­ves­ti­ga­tion led by re­tired Judge David Har­ris and David Ben­jamin in­to the dis­pute.

Im­bert gave the re­sponse through his lawyer Jo-Anne Julien in re­ply to a le­gal let­ter from Ram­dass’ at­tor­neys, who had claimed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and il­le­gal be­cause nei­ther the min­is­ter nor Cab­i­net had con­sti­tu­tion­al ju­ris­dic­tion and law­ful au­thor­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate the ac­tion and con­duct of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al out­side sec­tion 136 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has main­tained calls for an end to what she said was a “sham probe” be­ing con­duct­ed by a Cab­i­net- ap­point­ed com­mit­tee.