KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass has with­drawn her high-pro­file law­suit against the Cab­i­net. The case was dropped af­ter the State con­ced­ed, agree­ing to pay Ram­dass’ le­gal costs and ef­fec­tive­ly end­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Her at­tor­ney, Se­nior Coun­sel and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, said yes­ter­day that Ram­dass achieved the pur­pose of the law­suit: to pro­tect the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Of­fice from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

The par­ties ap­peared be­fore Jus­tice Joan Charles on May 12, where they in­formed the judge that dis­cus­sions were be­ing held af­ter the Privy Coun­cil rul­ing.

A con­sent or­der was filed be­fore Jus­tice Charles con­firm­ing the State’s agree­ment to cov­er costs.

In March, the Cab­i­net de­cid­ed to scrap as­pects of the probe re­lat­ed to Ram­dass.

“In the cir­cum­stances, the il­le­gal in­ves­ti­ga­tion hav­ing been aban­doned, there was noth­ing fur­ther to lit­i­gate, and hence Ms Ram­dass dis­con­tin­ued her claim on the ba­sis that it had achieved its pur­pose, and she was able to suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend the in­tegri­ty and in­de­pen­dence of her of­fice,” Ram­lo­gan stat­ed.

Ram­lo­gan com­mend­ed his client, Ram­dass, for her per­se­ver­ance.

“It has been a dif­fi­cult and ar­du­ous jour­ney that spanned the full gamut of the le­gal sys­tem, reach­ing all the way to the Privy Coun­cil in Lon­don af­ter the gov­ern­ment ap­pealed the de­ci­sion of the Court of Ap­peal in Ram­dass’ favour and lost be­fore the Privy Coun­cil.”

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion stemmed from a $2.6 bil­lion un­der­state­ment in re­port­ed gov­ern­ment rev­enue. Then-fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert ap­point­ed an in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee on May 7, 2024, led by re­tired High Court judge David Har­ris, to ex­am­ine the dis­crep­an­cy, the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s han­dling of amend­ed ac­counts, and oth­er re­lat­ed mat­ters.

How­ev­er, Ram­dass chal­lenged the probe through ju­di­cial re­view, as­sert­ing it un­der­mined her con­sti­tu­tion­al in­de­pen­dence. The case es­ca­lat­ed to the Privy Coun­cil, which ruled in her favour, al­low­ing the ju­di­cial re­view to pro­ceed. On Feb­ru­ary 28, this year, the cab­i­net un­der the then Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed to drop all as­pects of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­lat­ed to Ram­dass, cit­ing the suf­fi­cien­cy of the com­mit­tee’s fi­nal re­port.

Tan­coo: Pub­lic pay­ing for Im­bert’s ‘vin­dic­tive­ness’

New Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo yes­ter­day weighed in on Ram­dass’ de­ci­sion. He crit­i­cised the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion’s han­dling of the mat­ter, say­ing it erod­ed pub­lic trust and re­sult­ed in need­less ex­pen­di­ture.

“Tax­pay­ers now have to pay for Mr Im­bert’s vin­dic­tive­ness rather than Im­bert him­self. The pop­u­la­tion can rest as­sured that the ar­ro­gant and de­spi­ca­ble over­reach and abuse of of­fice which char­ac­terised Colm Im­bert’s tenure as Min­is­ter of Fi­nance end­ed when he was re­moved from of­fice and gov­ern­ment,” Tan­coo stat­ed.

Tan­coo de­scribed the probe as an “ill-con­ceived vin­dic­tive le­gal ac­tion” and said the Min­istry of Fi­nance would now work pro­fes­sion­al­ly with all con­sti­tu­tion­al bod­ies.

For­mer UNC sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al claimed Ram­dass had en­dured at­tacks from the out­set, in­clud­ing pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters, un­fair re­marks in Par­lia­ment, and be­ing sub­ject­ed to an in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee hand­picked by Im­bert.

“To me that was a thin­ly veiled at­tempt to fur­ther in­tim­i­date her and per­haps hound her out of of­fice.”

She said the courts had ul­ti­mate­ly sided with Ram­dass, but tax­pay­ers were left bear­ing the fi­nan­cial bur­den.

“From the very be­gin­ning, when the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al stood up to them and did not agree with the man­ner in which they chose to ini­ti­ate a process of amend­ing the na­tion­al ac­counts—which she raised con­cerns about due to a lack of doc­u­men­ta­tion—the gov­ern­ment spent tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey to ba­si­cal­ly in­tim­i­date this woman.”

She called for the to­tal amount paid to the com­mit­tee to be dis­closed.

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, de­clined to com­ment.

“I have no com­ment. I am no longer in of­fice. I am not a Court of Ap­peal judge,” Ar­mour told Guardian Me­dia.

For­mer min­is­ter Colm Im­bert did not re­spond to mul­ti­ple calls or mes­sages re­quest­ing com­ment.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist: Con­sti­tu­tion­al mech­a­nisms held firm

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said the law­suit lost mo­men­tum once the gov­ern­ment that ini­ti­at­ed the probe was vot­ed out. He said the con­tro­ver­sy re­vealed the im­por­tance of checks and bal­ances with­in the coun­try’s gov­er­nance sys­tem.

“It was clear that the in­ves­ti­gat­ing com­mit­tee was not as un­bi­ased as it was pre­sent­ed to be, be­cause that’s what we heard from the law lords: Why was the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance not a sub­ject of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­so?”

He said Ram­dass stood her ground by re­fus­ing to vi­o­late prop­er pro­ce­dure and con­sti­tu­tion­al dead­lines for sub­mit­ting re­ports, de­spite what he said was po­lit­i­cal pres­sure.

“The (for­mer) gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to take that mat­ter to court was clear­ly an abuse of pow­er, try­ing to over­whelm the Con­sti­tu­tion.”