GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is call­ing on Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to re­veal the names of the in­ves­ti­ga­tors ap­point­ed to look in­to is­sues re­lat­ed to the sub­mis­sion of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port on the 2023 pub­lic fi­nan­cial state­ments to Par­lia­ment.

The par­ty al­so wants to know the se­lec­tion process for the in­ves­ti­ga­tors, their terms of ref­er­ence and the cost to tax­pay­ers.

The call was made by Oropouche East MP Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo at a UNC’s press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day.

On April 26, Im­bert suc­ceed­ed in hav­ing a mo­tion passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to ex­tend the time to sub­mit pub­lic ac­counts to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al and the time for the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to sub­mit a re­port on the ac­counts to Par­lia­ment, un­der Sec­tions 24 (1) and 25 (1) of the Ex­che­quer and Au­dit Acts, re­spec­tive­ly.

Im­bert said it was nec­es­sary be­cause min­istry of­fi­cials had de­tect­ed a vari­ance and un­der­state­ment of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.6 bil­lion in the 2023 pub­lic fi­nan­cial state­ments.

The mo­tion was passed in the Sen­ate on April 29 by a 23-6 mar­gin.

Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass has de­fend­ed her con­duct in the sub­mis­sion of the re­port to Par­lia­ment and con­cern­ing the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the Fi­nance Min­istry on the $2.6 bil­lion un­der­state­ment.

Tan­coo said de­spite Im­bert’s “ut­ter­ances” one week ago about the need to in­ves­ti­gate there has been no pub­lic state­ment about the start of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, no pub­lic nam­ing of in­ves­ti­ga­tors, no dead­line for the re­port and no clear state­ment of the terms of ref­er­ence for any such in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He al­so claimed there was no ev­i­dence that Im­bert gad launched an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­fore he and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour en­gaged in the “most rep­re­hen­si­ble and vile abuse of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate to make se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions against the in­tegri­ty of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.”

“Do you now un­der­stand the at­tack on the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al? She re­fused to make the se­cret change in fig­ures de­mand­ed of her, she re­fused to fol­low the PNM code of se­cre­cy be­cause she is a pro­fes­sion­al, and that is why they at­tacked her,” he said.

Tan­coo added that the law and es­tab­lished prac­tice re­quire the Min­istry of Fi­nance to pro­vide state­ments and sup­port­ing re­ports to jus­ti­fy the state­ments of rev­enue and ex­pen­di­ture of pub­lic funds.