Gail Alexander
There is no missing money! This was pointed out yesterday by Finance Minister Colm Imbert, who accused Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar of making up stories in the impasse between Finance Ministry officials and the Auditor General in the 2023 public accounts matter.
He did so in a statement responding to Persad-Bissessar’s recent call for Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to launch an immediate independent investigation into Imbert’s conduct regarding “missing billions of taxpayers’ dollars.”
Persad-Bissessar’s call followed a Privy Council judgment in the Auditor General’s favour. The Government subsequently dropped its probe into the Auditor General’s conduct.
Detailing the process involved in submitting accounts to the Auditor General, which involves certification by three ministry officers, Imbert rebutted two of Persad-Bissessar’s claims.
“The Finance Minister, therefore, cannot be seriously accused by any right-thinking person of being responsible for any ‘missing money’ in the financial statements, especially since there is no missing money. That story is an orchestrated campaign being mounted by the Opposition to fool the gullible!” he said
Imbert, who accused Persad-Bissessar of “clutching at straws,” noted that she has been in public life for almost 30 years and must have a proper understanding of the process.
Imbert explained that in the annual format, the Auditor General has produced a report on the following financial statements:
i) Statements of the Treasury showing the financial position of the country;
ii) Appropriation Accounts of individual Accounting Officers’
iii) Statements of Receipts and Disbursements of individual Receivers of Revenue, and
iv) Financial Statements of individual Administering Officers of Funds.
He said these statements aren’t prepared by a finance minister and are accompanied by a Statement of Declaration and Certification signed by the three Finance Ministry officials - namely the Accounting Officer, who is the Permanent Secretary, the Comptroller of Accounts and the Treasury Director.
He added: “It is now well established that an unfortunate accounting error was made by officials at the Central Bank on February 8, 2023, as a result of a failure of software associated with a new electronic cheque clearing system introduced by the Central Bank in 2023. This error found its way into the public accounts when they were submitted to the Auditor General in January 2024.
“Again, for the avoidance of doubt, this accounting error was not discovered by the Auditor General’s office. Instead, it was discovered by personnel in the Budget Division doing their usual year-end review of the fiscal outturn for 2023, after the accounts were submitted to the Auditor General. Following this discovery, the public servants in the Treasury subsequently attempted to bring the accounting error to the attention of the Auditor General.”