Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Two for­mer se­nior Cen­tral Bank of­fi­cials have called for a speedy res­o­lu­tion and even apolo­gies over the $2.6 bil­lion dis­crep­an­cy im­passe be­tween the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al and the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

One of them has al­so ques­tioned why the Cen­tral Bank failed to meet with Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass to help in set­tling the dis­pute once and for all.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Dr Ter­rence Far­rell and Win­ston Dook­er­an main­tained that a meet­ing be­tween Ram­dass and Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Dr Alvin Hi­laire must be fa­cil­i­tat­ed im­me­di­ate­ly.

Far­rell, a for­mer deputy Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor, ex­plained that the con­tin­ued dead­lock threat­ened to fur­ther erode pub­lic con­fi­dence in the in­sti­tu­tions.

“These of­fice hold­ers, whether in the Cen­tral Bank or Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Min­is­ter him­self, all have to act with a cer­tain de­gree of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the larg­er pub­lic good and I don’t think that has been very ev­i­dent quite frankly,” Far­rell said.

While lay­ing the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Spe­cial Re­port on T&T’s pub­lic ac­counts for 2023 in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said the Cen­tral Bank had ad­vised him that the gov­er­nor was open to meet­ing with and dis­cussing any mat­ter with Ram­dass. Im­bert al­so said the re­port on­ly added fu­el to the fire and cre­at­ed “more un­nec­es­sary pub­lic con­fu­sion,” since Ram­dass’ po­si­tion had not changed from her orig­i­nal re­port.

How­ev­er, in the spe­cial re­port, Ram­dass not­ed that she was de­nied ac­cess to the Cen­tral Bank’s elec­tron­ic cheque clear­ing sys­tem, which neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed her abil­i­ty to per­form a prop­er au­dit in­to what led to the $2.6 bil­lion un­der­state­ment in rev­enue by the Fi­nance Min­istry.

By let­ter dat­ed June 25, 2024, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al said she re­quest­ed an ur­gent meet­ing with Dr Hi­laire and an as­sess­ment of the elec­tron­ic cheque clear­ing sys­tem, which was blamed for the un­der­state­ment of rev­enue.

Ram­dass claimed Hi­laire’s of­fice re­spond­ed, ex­press­ing his will­ing­ness to meet with her and re­quest­ing the scope of the as­sess­ment. With­in days of her of­fice pro­vid­ing those de­tails, how­ev­er, the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor said he was un­able to ac­com­mo­date her re­quest.

Far­rell said he was baf­fled by the re­fusal.

“I found Cen­tral Bank’s re­sponse, quite frankly—puz­zling. Their re­fusal to en­ter­tain a re­quest from the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al af­ter the let­ter out­lin­ing the scope of the in­quiry was sub­mit­ted, a kind of three-line re­fusal, I found that quite puz­zling to tell you the truth,” he said.

Dur­ing Mon­day’s par­lia­ment sit­ting, Im­bert sought to ex­plain why the re­quest was de­clined.

“I am ad­vised that to date, while it has re­ceived an out­line of the scope of the pro­posed ex­am­i­na­tion from a sub­or­di­nate in the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment, the bank has not yet re­ceived any cor­re­spon­dence from the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al del­e­gat­ing au­thor­i­ty to her staff to act on her be­half on this mat­ter, nor has it re­ceived a pro­posed time or date for the ear­li­er re­quest­ed meet­ing be­tween the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al and the Gov­er­nor. As such, the bank was un­able to ac­com­mo­date the re­quest,” Im­bert said.

How­ev­er, Far­rell main­tained that the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s as­sess­ment of the elec­tron­ic sys­tem was an im­por­tant pro­ce­dure.

“The Au­di­tor has to make sure that the com­put­erised sys­tems func­tion in the way that it is sup­posed to func­tion and based on the re­port that no one de­nied the sys­tem did mal­func­tion, that is why au­di­tors have ac­cess to those sys­tems to be able to ver­i­fy that the sys­tems work in the way they are in­tend­ed to work,” he ex­plained.

Far­rell, who al­so sat on the Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form, said the is­sue of of­fice­hold­ers get­ting in­to con­flict with one an­oth­er was an is­sue they con­sid­ered.

“One of the things we ad­vo­cat­ed for in our rec­om­men­da­tions is that the Pres­i­dent of our Re­pub­lic should take on an ad­di­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to deal with sit­u­a­tions pre­cise­ly like this, which the Pres­i­dent does not now do. The Pres­i­dent should be able to call in those con­sti­tu­tion­al of­fice­hold­ers and say to them this is not how you be­have,” he said.

Mean­while, for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Win­ston Dook­er­an, who served from 1997 to 2002, said Ram­dass and Hi­laire should en­gage in dis­cus­sions aimed at end­ing the con­tro­ver­sial is­sue.

He al­so con­tend­ed that of­fice­hold­ers must all apol­o­gise for how the han­dled the fall­out.

“I hope this re­solves the mat­ter and some peo­ple apol­o­gise for what they have said. I think they should apol­o­gise. I don’t want to go in­to who should apol­o­gise and who should not but they put the coun­try in need of apolo­gies, as they cre­at­ed what re­al­ly was a big is­sue in the pub­lic are­na but was a re­al­ly mi­nor tech­ni­cal man­ner,” said Dook­er­an.

He said from his ex­pe­ri­ence, is­sues such as these are ad­dressed via tech­ni­cal dis­cus­sions and not al­lowed to lan­guish.