Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has fired back at claims by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that the in­de­pen­dent probe in­to the un­der­state­ment of rev­enue for the fi­nan­cial year 2023 and re­lat­ed mat­ters is an “il­le­gal sham”.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the claim on Tues­day against the team set up to probe the mat­ter by the Cab­i­net. She said the team, head­ed by re­tired High Court judge Richard Har­ris, could not legal­ly con­duct such a probe, and sug­gest­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion was the bet­ter body to do so since it had the pow­er to rep­ri­mand pub­lic ser­vant if they were found to be neg­li­gent in the court of their du­ties.

Asked about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s as­ser­tion dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Im­bert re­ject­ed the sug­ges­tion as he de­fend­ed the team.

“It is non­sense be­cause in the Sen­ate, I said that I am go­ing to con­duct an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion to in­ves­ti­gate the facts with­in the Min­istry of Fi­nance. So who is sup­posed to pick the team? Should I ask the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion to pick the team, it is non­sense,” Im­bert said.

He ex­plained that the probe was not a com­mis­sion of en­quiry and while Cab­i­net was at lib­er­ty to ap­point mem­bers, the ob­jec­tiv­i­ty of the team, which al­so in­cludes for­mer au­dit di­rec­tor at the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment, David Ben­jamin, had to be de­fend­ed.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so con­tend­ed that the PSC should un­der­take the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to en­sure trans­paren­cy.

“The PSC reg­u­la­tions have spelt out a pro­ce­dure for con­duct­ing such in­ves­ti­ga­tions to en­sure that they are done in a fair and trans­par­ent man­ner with re­spect for in­di­vid­u­als’ rights. Mr Im­bert wants to act as judge, ju­ry and ex­e­cu­tion­er by ap­point­ing this com­mit­tee. He has usurped the role and func­tion of the PSC, which is the on­ly body by law that has the pow­er to in­ves­ti­gate dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters and mis­con­duct in the pub­lic ser­vice,” she said.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Im­bert ar­gued that the in­de­pen­dent probe was nec­es­sary and al­so an in­ter­nal one.

“There are two dif­fer­ent things here you know, as Min­is­ter of Fi­nance I have to find out what hap­pened.”

The Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed team has been giv­en two months to con­duct its probe. Its terms of ref­er­ence in­clude de­ter­min­ing the cir­cum­stances that led to the un­der­state­ment of rev­enue in the pub­lic ac­counts for the fi­nan­cial year 2023 and what should be done to avoid a re­cur­rence of the same, as well as the ef­fi­ca­cy of the new Elec­tron­ic Cheque-Clear­ing Sys­tem in­tro­duced by the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go in Feb­ru­ary 2023.

The ap­point­ment of the in­ves­tiga­tive team was the lat­est de­vel­op­ment fol­low­ing a dis­pute be­tween the Fi­nance Min­istry and Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass in the sub­mis­sion of doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to the $2.6 bil­lion un­der­state­ment.

Im­bert had pre­vi­ous­ly de­scribed a le­gal let­ter from at­tor­neys at Free­dom Law Cham­bers, which is rep­re­sent­ing Ram­dass, as con­tain­ing the in­sin­u­a­tion that he, as Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, or min­istry of­fi­cials, un­eth­i­cal­ly back­dat­ed the amend­ed pub­lic ac­counts to Jan­u­ary 31, 2024, to cov­er a mis­take, when the true date on the amend­ed pub­lic ac­counts is April 16, 2024.

Speak­ing in the Up­per House over a week ago, Im­bert said the claim was a bla­tant un­truth that has been put in­to the pub­lic do­main and re­quired a full, in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He re­it­er­at­ed this yes­ter­day, adding that he al­so had no hand in deal­ing with the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al or any mem­bers of her team.