Who are the investigators appointed to look into issues related to the submission of the Auditor General’s report on the 2023 public financial statements to Parliament?
That’s the question being asked by the United National Congress (UNC), who demanding that the Finance Minister Colm Imbert reveal the names.
The party also wants to know the selection process for the investigators, their terms of reference and the cost to taxpayers.
The call was made by Oropouche East MP Davendranath Tancoo at UNC’s press conference yesterday.
Minister Imbert succeeded in having a motion passed in the House of Representatives to extend the time to submit public accounts to the Auditor General and the time for the Auditor General to submit a report on the accounts to Parliament, under Sections 24 (1) and 25 (1) of the Exchequer and Audit Acts, respectively.
Imbert said on April 26 that it was necessary because ministry officials had detected a variance and understatement of approximately $2.6 billion in the 2023 public financial statements.
The motion was passed in the Senate on April 29 by a 23-6 margin.
Tancoo said despite Imbert’s “utterances” one week ago about the need to investigate there has been no public statement about the start of an investigation, no public naming of investigators, no deadline for the report and no clear statement of the terms of reference for any such investigation.
He also claimed there was no evidence that Imbert had launched an independent investigation before he and Attorney General Reginald Armour engaged in the “most reprehensible and vile abuse of parliamentary privilege in the House of Representatives and the Senate to make serious allegations against the integrity of the Auditor General.”
“Do you now understand the attack on the Auditor General? She refused to make the secret change in figures demanded of her, she refused to follow the PNM code of secrecy because she is a professional, and that is why they attacked her,” he said.
Tancoo added that the law and established practice require the Ministry of Finance to provide statements and supporting reports to justify the statements of revenue and expenditure of public funds.