Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The fate of a law­suit over a de­ci­sion to in­clude Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass in an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the han­dling of a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of rev­enue in the na­tion­al ac­counts is now un­clear, af­ter the Cab­i­net de­cid­ed to scrap as­pects of the probe re­lat­ed to her.

The Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion was an­nounced by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs in a press re­lease yes­ter­day.

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 the team had 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.

While the re­lease ap­peared to sug­gest that Ram­dass’ pend­ing case was no longer nec­es­sary, her lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, said his team would have to con­sid­er the Gov­ern­ment’s “ca­pit­u­la­tion” be­fore mak­ing a fi­nal de­ci­sion.

Ram­lo­gan said: “We will care­ful­ly as­sess the terms of the Gov­ern­ment’s con­ces­sion in this mat­ter to de­ter­mine whether it amounts to ap­pro­pri­ate vin­di­ca­tion to her rights.”

He point­ed out that Ram­dass brought a ju­di­cial re­view chal­leng­ing her in­clu­sion and a con­sti­tu­tion­al claim al­leg­ing she was a vic­tim of bul­ly­ing, in­tim­i­da­tion and ha­rass­ment and claim­ing de­c­la­ra­tions and com­pen­sa­tion.

“We are in­ter­est­ed to know whether the Gov­ern­ment will al­so de­fend that mat­ter all the way to the Privy Coun­cil, or whether this con­ces­sion equal­ly ap­plies to her con­sti­tu­tion­al claim,” he said.

How­ev­er, he de­clined to com­ment fur­ther on the cas­es still be­fore the courts.

Stat­ing that Ram­dass is an ex­am­ple to all in­de­pen­dent pub­lic of­fi­cers, Ram­lo­gan said: “We con­grat­u­late Ms Ram­dass on her re­sound­ing le­gal vic­to­ry and are pleased to be of ser­vice to her in her jour­ney for jus­tice.”

In a state­ment is­sued late yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on Cab­i­net to or­der a probe in­to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion.

Stat­ing that it (the sit­u­a­tion) was a blot on this coun­try’s democ­ra­cy, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Mr Im­bert’s at­tempts to in­tim­i­date, ha­rass, and bul­ly Au­di­tor Gen­er­al Jai­wantie Ram­dass back­fired spec­tac­u­lar­ly when Ms Ram­dass de­cid­ed to stand up and de­fend her­self and the Con­sti­tu­tion from the Gov­ern­ment’s un­war­rant­ed po­lit­i­cal at­tack.”

She added, “We de­mand an­swers from the Gov­ern­ment on whether Im­bert’s con­duct will be sub­ject of an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and the amount of mon­ey wast­ed on this mat­ter.”

She al­so point­ed out that the AG’s Of­fice did not dis­close when the Cab­i­net re­ceived the in­ves­tiga­tive re­port.

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 she need­ed le­gal ad­vice on whether she could ac­cept them af­ter the Jan­u­ary statu­to­ry dead­line for sub­mis­sion. Ram­dass even­tu­al­ly ac­cept­ed the records and dis­patched 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 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 Im­bert re­peat­ed­ly de­nied any wrong­do­ing. His lawyers claimed 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 cheques 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 there was no back­dat­ing, as they not­ed 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 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 con­cerns 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 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 con­sti­tu­tion­al 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 to the 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 it was un­for­tu­nate that Im­bert chal­lenged Ram­dass’ abil­i­ty to pur­sue the case in­stead of al­low­ing a judge to weigh in on it.

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. It is ar­guable that this has the ap­pear­ance of a one-sided in­ves­ti­ga­tion seek­ing to de­flect at­ten­tion or blame away from the min­is­ter,” La­dy Sim­ler said.

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

Ram­dass was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Kent Sam­lal, Natasha Bis­ram, and Aasha Ram­lal.