Minister of Finance Colm Imbert has rubbished calls by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar for an investigation into his actions with regard to the impasse between public officers at the Ministry of Finance and Auditor General Jaiwantie Ramdass over 2023 public accounts.
In a statement on March 5, Imbert said Persad-Bissessar's claims were a 'diatribe' and admonished her for 'grasping at straws' and 'making up stories about missing money."
Persad-Bissessar had claimed in a statement on February 28 that the minister had attempted to intimidate Ramdass in a political attack that backfired.
She was referring to an independent probe commissioned by the Ministry of Finance and announced by Imbert on May 7, 2024, into the circumstances surrounding a $2.6 billion understatement in the 2023 public accounts and the reporting of same to the Auditor General.
The probe initially sought to investigate the Auditor General's conduct in the matter in addition to details on the source of the error.
Ramdass, however, filed for judicial review over terms of reference of the probe. She claimed the independence of her office insulated it from the Ministry of Finance's attempt to investigate her conduct.
Her judicial review was in turn challenged by the Attorney General and Minister of Finance. That challenge was eventually turned back by the Privy Council clearing the way for Ramdass's judicial review to go forward.
On February 28, a statement from the office of the Attorney General announced that the remaining unchallenged terms of reference in the probe had been completed by the investigation team.
It said, 'The investigation team has provided its final report with respect to the permitted terms of reference, which helpfully discloses what went wrong and satisfactorily explained the understatement...
'Given these developments, the Cabinet has determined that the continuation of proceedings in CV2024 - 01720 Jaiwantie Ramdass vs Minister of Finance and The Cabinet of The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago will not further inform the issues already addressed by the investigative committee's findings, while incurring further legal costs and judicial time while these proceedings are ongoing.
'Accordingly, the Cabinet has taken the decision not to proceed further with the terms of reference (of the investigation) referred to above pertaining to the Auditor General.'
Persad-Bissessar also commented on the probe and eventual Privy Council ruling in a statement on February 28.
She said, '(This) should never have been the subject of an investigation by the government because she (Ramdass) did absolutely nothing wrong.
'The half-baked investigative report the government says it received was a ridiculous waste of taxpayers' money. As noted by the Privy Council, Mr Imbert himself drafted the terms of reference, hand-picked the investigators, and ordered them to report to him. In circumstances where Mr Imbert's conduct and integrity have been called into question, this reeks of bias and political smart-manism. It
