DEREK ACHONG

The Cab­i­net has de­cid­ed to scrap the as­pects of the probe in­to the han­dling of a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of rev­enue in the na­tion­al ac­counts re­lat­ed to Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass. 

The de­ci­sion was an­nounced by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs in a press re­lease is­sued a short while ago. 

It not­ed that while Ram­dass was pur­su­ing le­gal ac­tion over be­ing sub­ject­ed to the probe, the in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee led by re­tired High Court Judge David Har­ris con­tin­ued their work in re­la­tion to its terms of ref­er­ence that were not the sub­ject of her case. 

It said that the team sub­mit­ted its fi­nal re­port, which it claimed "help­ful­ly dis­clos­es what went wrong and sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly ex­plained the un­der­state­ment". 

"The Cab­i­net hav­ing since com­menced con­sid­er­a­tion of the In­ves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee find­ings, is sat­is­fied that its re­port has ad­e­quate­ly iden­ti­fied the con­tribut­ing fac­tors to the rev­enue un­der­state­ment and pro­vid­ed rec­om­men­da­tions to strength­en fi­nan­cial over­sight and, will be re­ceiv­ing from the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance a Note with sug­ges­tions and rec­om­men­da­tions," it said. 

It sug­gest­ed that based on the de­vel­op­ment, the Cab­i­net de­ter­mined that Ram­dass' le­gal pro­ceed­ings, which are cur­rent­ly pend­ing be­fore Jus­tice Joan Charles, will not "in­form the is­sues" al­ready ad­dressed by the com­mit­tee while in­cur­ring fur­ther le­gal costs and ju­di­cial time. 

"Ac­cord­ing­ly, the Cab­i­net has tak­en the de­ci­sion not to pro­ceed fur­ther with the Terms of Ref­er­ence re­ferred to above per­tain­ing to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al," it stat­ed. 

"The Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to im­ple­ment­ing the nec­es­sary mea­sures to en­sure the ac­cu­ra­cy and re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the coun­try's fi­nan­cial re­port­ing and to up­hold the in­tegri­ty of our pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions," it added. 

About the Case 

The dis­pute be­tween Ram­dass and the Min­istry of Fi­nance arose in April, last year, af­ter the min­istry sought to de­liv­er amend­ed pub­lic ac­counts, which sought to ex­plain a re­port­ed $2.6 bil­lion un­der­es­ti­ma­tion in rev­enue. 

Ram­dass ini­tial­ly re­fused re­ceipt as she claimed that she need­ed le­gal ad­vice on whether she could ac­cept them af­ter the Jan­u­ary statu­to­ry dead­line for sub­mis­sion. 

Ram­dass even­tu­al­ly ac­cept­ed the records and dis­pat­ached au­dit staff to ver­i­fy them. 

She then sub­mit­ted her orig­i­nal an­nu­al re­port to Par­lia­ment, which was based on the orig­i­nal records. 

In sub­se­quent le­gal cor­re­spon­dence be­tween the par­ties, Ram­dass claimed that her au­dit team was un­able to rec­on­cile the amend­ed records based on doc­u­ments it au­dit­ed. She al­so con­tend­ed that the amend­ed records ap­peared to be back­dat­ed to the orig­i­nal statu­to­ry dead­line in Jan­u­ary.

Ram­dass al­so took is­sue with the fact that the dis­crep­an­cy was ini­tial­ly es­ti­mat­ed at $3.4 bil­lion. 

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert re­peat­ed­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing. 

His lawyers claimed that the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion af­ter the ini­tial es­ti­mate re­vealed that the vari­ance was in fact $2,599,278,188.72, which was at­trib­uted to Val­ue Added Tax (VAT), In­di­vid­ual, Busi­ness Levy and Green Fund Levy con­tri­bu­tions. 

They al­so claimed that checks in re­la­tion to the ap­prox­i­mate $780 mil­lion dif­fer­ence be­tween the ini­tial and fi­nal es­ti­mat­ed vari­ances at­trib­uted it to tax re­fund cheques to tax­pay­ers is­sued for the 2022 fi­nan­cial year be­ing cashed in the fi­nan­cial year 2023. 

They at­trib­uted the er­ror to a switch from a man­u­al to elec­tron­ic cheque-clear­ing sys­tem by the Cen­tral Bank. 

They claimed that there was no back­dat­ing as they not­ed that the al­le­ga­tion was made be­cause a doc­u­ment re­lat­ed to the orig­i­nal pub­lic ac­counts was in­ad­ver­tent­ly in­clud­ed in the re­vised doc­u­ments. 

They al­so con­tend­ed that Ram­dass act­ed il­le­gal­ly in ini­tial­ly re­fus­ing to ac­cept the amend­ed ac­counts. 

How­ev­er, they claimed that their client had, for the time be­ing, de­cid­ed against tak­ing le­gal ac­tion against her for it. 

Im­bert even­tu­al­ly agreed to lay the orig­i­nal re­port in Par­lia­ment and did so on May 24. 

His de­ci­sion was based on the un­der­stand­ing that Ram­dass would is­sue a spe­cial re­port clar­i­fy­ing her ini­tial re­port based on the amend­ed records pro­vid­ed. 

The re­port was even­tu­al­ly sup­plied but Ram­dass main­tained the sim­i­lar con­cerns that were raised in her ini­tial re­port.

In lay­ing the spe­cial re­port in Par­lia­ment, Im­bert op­posed com­ments made by Ram­dass in an af­fi­davit in her case in which she claimed that her abil­i­ty to per­form a prop­er au­dit and ver­i­fy the is­sues that caused the er­ror was ham­pered as she was al­leged­ly blocked by the Cen­tral Bank from ac­cess­ing its elec­tron­ic cheque clear­ing sys­tem. 

Ram­dass first filed a sep­a­rate pend­ing case over her abil­i­ty to seek in­de­pen­dent le­gal ad­vice and rep­re­sen­ta­tion, to be paid for by the State. 

She then filed a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit chal­leng­ing Im­bert's de­ci­sion to in­clude her in the probe in­to what tran­spired and the fair­ness of it. 

Ram­dass was re­fused leave to pur­sue the case by High Court Judge West­min James. 

His de­ci­sion was over­turned by the Court of Ap­peal lead­ing to an ap­peal from Im­bert and his Cab­i­net col­leagues to the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil.

In No­vem­ber, last year, five Law Lords dis­missed the ap­peal. 

They gave their de­ci­sion with­out even hear­ing from Ram­dass' lawyers on the date of the hear­ing but de­liv­ered writ­ten rea­sons for their de­ci­sion ear­li­er this month.  

La­dy In­grid Sim­ler, who wrote the judg­ment, said that it was un­for­tu­nate that Im­bert chal­lenged Ram­dass' abil­i­ty to pur­sue the case in­stead of al­low­ing a judge to weigh in on it. 

She said: "It might have been thought prefer­able for this case to go for­ward to a full ju­di­cial re­view hear­ing so that the se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of un­law­ful con­duct made by the re­spon­dent (Ram­dass) could be ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed, con­sid­ered and de­ter­mined on their mer­it." 

"It might be thought that pub­lic con­fi­dence in the ap­pel­lants (Im­bert and the Cab­i­net) would be strength­ened if the al­le­ga­tions are found to be with­out mer­it; but if there is no in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the al­le­ga­tions do not sim­ply dis­ap­pear; on the con­trary, they may sim­ply grow loud­er in vol­ume," she added. 

She took is­sue with the fact that Im­bert rec­om­mend­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, helped se­lect the in­ves­ti­ga­tion team, set their terms of ref­er­ence, was re­spon­si­ble for their re­mu­ner­a­tion, and was ex­pect­ed to re­ceive their re­port. 

"Notwith­stand­ing his own role as Min­is­ter of the de­part­ment re­spon­si­ble for the un­der­state­ment, and the fact that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is ca­pa­ble of ap­por­tion­ing blame as be­tween his de­part­ment and that of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, his con­duct is not tar­get­ed for in­ves­ti­ga­tion in any of the terms of ref­er­ence where­as the con­duct of the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al is," La­dy Sim­ler said. 

"It is ar­guable that this has the ap­pear­ance of a one-sided in­ves­ti­ga­tion seek­ing to de­flect at­ten­tion or blame away from the Min­is­ter," she added. 

When the case came up a day af­ter the Privy Coun­cil de­liv­ered its writ­ten judg­ment, Jus­tice Charles gave di­rec­tions for the fil­ing of sub­mis­sions and re­served May 12 to de­liv­er her judg­ment. 

Ram­dass was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers.