Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion PNM MP and for­mer En­er­gy min­is­ter and prime min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, yes­ter­day called on Gov­ern­ment to clar­i­fy if the State is pay­ing for re­im­burse­ment of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s fees from the Privy Coun­cil mat­ter against for­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

This, af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo con­firmed that $2m in ad­di­tion­al funds was al­lo­cat­ed to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment as fees “to meet the cost of re­im­burse­ment stem­ming from the judg­ment in favour of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al ver­sus the for­mer Min­is­ter.”

“It’s not usu­al for the State to pay for re­im­burse­ment of fees in that man­ner,” Young seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the is­sue dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee meet­ing in Par­lia­ment.

“Is it now the State is pay­ing the fees of the in­di­vid­ual? Re­im­burs­ing an in­di­vid­ual? That would be quite im­prop­er,” he added.

Tan­coo had de­tailed sup­ple­men­tal al­lo­ca­tion of a to­tal of $4,982,000 for the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment. He said this was due to pay­ment of ar­rears of salary owed to hold­ers of pub­lic of­fices aris­ing from im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sions’ 120th re­port as well as ex­pens­es un­der goods and ser­vices “... such as an un­prece­dent­ed mul­ti -mil­lion-dol­lar le­gal bill due to the reck­less­ness of the for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter.”

Young not­ed that un­der “Fees” there was an in­crease of $2m and that was list­ed as per­tain­ing to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s Privy Coun­cil ap­peal in the 2024 mat­ter with for­mer Fi­nance min­is­ter Im­bert. Young sought par­tic­u­lars to un­der­stand how it came up to $2m.

“If this is a pay­ment of fees from that mat­ter, shouldn’t those fees be paid from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al? How are those fees now be­ing paid out of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al?” Young added.

Tan­coo said he’d con­sid­er pro­vid­ing such in­for­ma­tion. Young asked if the $2m was pay­ment of fees or pay­ment of costs, as costs that would have been award­ed for the ac­tion, should be paid by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice.

“I can’t see how the of­fice of Au­di­tor Gen­er­al would be pay­ing the fees of the in­di­vid­ual in­volved who was then in lit­i­ga­tion with the then Fi­nance min­is­ter, is it her fees be­ing paid?” Young asked.

“The pub­lic ser­vice and the of­fice of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al can­not pay the fees for the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al. I un­der­stand if as you said, it is as the re­sult of be­ing suc­cess­ful in lit­i­ga­tion in the Privy Coun­cil, costs have been award­ed and costs to­tal $2m, which is why I asked for a break­down.”

“If costs were award­ed there’d be a process for tax­a­tion or maybe there’s been an agree­ment as to the cost, but then it would be costs award­ed and that should be paid by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. It’s not usu­al - I’m not sure if it’s prop­er - for the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, for those fees to be paid by the state.”

Tan­coo said the ex­plana­to­ry notes to the al­lo­ca­tion stat­ed the $2m was fees “to meet the cost of re­im­burse­ment stem­ming from the judge­ment in favour of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al ver­sus the for­mer Min­is­ter.”

Young added, “But it’s not usu­al for the state to pay for re­im­burse­ment of fees in that man­ner. If fees are in­curred - and it’s for the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al to pay- there should have been an agree­ment by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at the time and my rec­ol­lec­tion at the time is the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at the time had re­fused to pay the fees of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al. So, it was in­cum­bent on the in­di­vid­ual to cov­er the fees. So, is it now the State is pay­ing the fees of the in­di­vid­ual? Re­im­burs­ing an in­di­vid­ual? That would be quite im­prop­er, I’m seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion.”

Tan­coo replied, “Asked and an­swered.”

“Ac­tu­al­ly, it’s not,” Young added.

When SFC chair­man Jagdeo Singh al­lud­ed to lit­i­ga­tion he knew of con­cern­ing a con­sent or­der, PNM MP Colm Im­bert said Singh wasn’t sup­posed to in­ter­vene to clar­i­fy any­thing the Gov­ern­ment said or of­fer ad­vice .Tan­coo said Young could get more in­for­ma­tion via fil­ing ques­tions in Par­lia­ment. Young said, "The pop­u­la­tion needs to know - $2m in fees, what are the par­tic­u­lars, who are those fees be­ing paid to?”

“More cor­rup­tion” to be re­vealed — Padarath

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath clashed with sev­er­al PNM MPs who grilled him on the sup­ple­men­tal al­lo­ca­tion of $128, 403, 880 for the OPM.

Padarath said, “It’s clear the for­mer Gov­ern­ment crashed the econ­o­my, we’re now see­ing in con­crete ev­i­dence, high lev­els of in­com­pe­tence, I as­sure you, from the in­for­ma­tion avail­able to us - hav­ing had it been hid­den by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion - mas­sive amounts of cor­rup­tion have been un­earthed and will be shared with the pop­u­la­tion.”

Take charge of pro­ceed­ings, Mr chair­man — Gon­za­les

Yes­ter­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) de­lib­er­a­tions were so stormy with “heat” from Gov­ern­ment, re­but­tals from the Op­po­si­tion and crosstalk, that at one point, SFC chair­man Jagdeo Singh urged all to “pro­ceed in a civilised man­ner and stop hurl­ing in­sults at each oth­er.”

When Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment MPs be­rat­ed the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment MPs for ask­ing queries be­cause they should have known of the is­sues dur­ing their tenure, PNM whip and for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les re­peat­ed­ly ex­plained that Op­po­si­tion MPs were seek­ing replies for the pub­lic’s in­for­ma­tion.

Af­ter OPM Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath re­buffed yet an­oth­er query with “barbs,” Gon­za­les told Singh, "Chair­man, our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to ask ques­tions and we’re ask­ing those in align­ment with the Stand­ing Or­ders. Why is the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter al­lowed to be so in­sul­tive to the Op­po­si­tion mem­bers, be­hav­ing in the most scan­dalous way.

“I’m ask­ing you to please take charge of these pro­ceed­ings. I’m just sim­ply ask­ing you that be­cause we’re ask­ing le­git­i­mate ques­tions in align­ment with our Stand­ing Or­ders and we’re be­ing re­spond­ed to with in­sult­ing lan­guage, Mr Chair - it’s just sim­ply wrong.”