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Saturday, June 14, 2025

Opposition wants details of Auditor General probe

by

GEISHA KOWLESSAR-ALONZO
404 days ago
20240506
Oropuche West MP Dave Tancoo  addresses of the media during yesterday’s UNC press conference.

Oropuche West MP Dave Tancoo addresses of the media during yesterday’s UNC press conference.

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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.


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