DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion head Clyde Weath­er­head is crit­i­cis­ing the in­ter­nal probe or­dered by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert in­to the 2023 pub­lic ac­counts fi­as­co.

Weath­er­head weighed in on the im­broglio on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, say­ing the im­passe be­tween Im­bert, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, and Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass should nev­er have de­scend­ed in­to pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters and law­suits.

His com­ment came a day af­ter Ram­dass sent a sec­ond pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to Im­bert, de­mand­ing that he can­cel the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to what led to the un­der­state­ment of $2.6 bil­lion in the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s 2023 re­port.

This fol­lows Ram­dass’ first pre-ac­tion let­ter on April 28 ac­cus­ing the Min­istry of Fi­nance of at­tempt­ing to back­date the dis­put­ed ac­counts—a claim Im­bert has de­nied. She al­so took um­brage with both Im­bert’s and Ar­mour’s pub­lic com­ments on the mat­ter.

Com­ment­ing on the pub­lic spat, Weath­er­head in­sist­ed that this rais­es ques­tions about prop­er gov­er­nance, as he ac­cused both Im­bert and Ar­mour of “walk­ing dan­ger­ous­ly close” to di­rect­ing an in­de­pen­dent of­fice­hold­er.

He was speak­ing specif­i­cal­ly to Im­bert’s re­quest that Ram­dass up­date the ac­counts dur­ing the im­broglio. Im­bert told Par­lia­ment about the un­der­re­port­ed funds on April 26, not­ing that Ram­dass ini­tial­ly de­clined to ac­cept the ac­counts, re­vised her de­ci­sion and still did not up­date her fig­ures.

Fur­ther­more, when Ram­dass asked the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for a le­gal opin­ion on Sec­tions 24 and 25 of the Ex­che­quer and Au­dit Act which speaks to the time­line for the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to re­ceive ac­counts from the Trea­sury, and what hap­pens in place of that, he told her he could not ad­vise her since he was al­ready in­struct­ing the Fi­nance Min­is­ter in the mat­ter.

Weath­er­head views this as med­dling.

“The Con­sti­tu­tion, when it says that of­fice is in­de­pen­dent, it says that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al is not to be di­rect­ed by any­body, any hu­man be­ing or any in­sti­tu­tion in the per­for­mance of her con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ties. So, at that point they were walk­ing that dan­ger­ous line,” he said.

“If the AG re­ceived a re­quest for an opin­ion on the law, why he didn’t sim­ply say ‘Well look, I’m ad­vis­ing the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, why don’t we sit and dis­cuss the law?’ Or pro­vide them with sep­a­rate opin­ions?”

He said this in­ci­dent had sparked mis­trust among the pop­u­la­tion over the na­tion’s fi­nances and sug­gest­ed that the Pres­i­dent should have or­dered the probe.

“When you talk about white-col­lar crime, here’s the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance say­ing he now has an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to an au­dit which is on­go­ing be­cause he ex­tend­ed the time by car­ry­ing a mo­tion to Par­lia­ment. With that ex­tend­ed time the au­dit is con­tin­u­ing, so how are you in­ves­ti­gat­ing an au­dit? How are you au­dit­ing an au­dit?” he quipped.

“And he says this is an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion. First of all, you’re us­ing ex­ter­nal peo­ple. Sec­ond­ly, you are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the Cen­tral Bank be­cause you want to know, in terms of ref­er­ence, how did this prob­lem arise with the Cen­tral Bank, which you say is what caused the un­der­state­ment of the rev­enue. You want to in­ves­ti­gate the of­fi­cers of your own min­istry, who you call of­fi­cials, and you want to in­ves­ti­gate the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al. How is that in­ter­nal? Is the Cen­tral Bank in­ter­nal to your min­istry? Is the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al in­ter­nal to your min­istry? It is the Pres­i­dent, who ap­points these peo­ple, who must es­tab­lish a tri­bunal, not the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the Cab­i­net.”

Last week, for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Win­ston Dook­er­an al­so said he was not in sup­port of the probe and not­ed that this im­broglio had caused mis­trust among the pop­u­la­tion about the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial man­age­ment. He added that there was al­so a mis­un­der­stand­ing among those in­volved as it re­lates to their re­spec­tive roles and func­tions.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the lat­est pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter from Ram­dass yes­ter­day, Im­bert not­ed that the mat­ter was be­fore the court and there­fore he could not com­ment.

Mean­while, Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) chair­man Win­ston Rud­der said he was out of the coun­try for per­son­al rea­sons and could not re­spond at this time.

Both the Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al have ar­gued that the PSC is the on­ly agency au­tho­rised to in­ves­ti­gate the fi­as­co.