Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Let's welcome, as I said to you all, we have another interview that's scheduled to begin at this time. Let's welcome to our program. She's been with us on numerous occasions. She joins us again this morning.
Let's say good morning and welcome to Opposition Senator Jayanti Lachmidia. Good morning to you.
[00:00:25] Speaker C: Hi. Good morning. Are you hearing me clearly?
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Yes, we're hearing you loud and clear.
[00:00:30] Speaker C: Okay. I'm getting a little feedback on my end, but that's all right. I can hear you.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Nice to have you with us here this morning. And our discussion this morning focuses on something that we've been talking about for quite some time. But there are so many different elements of this thing that has popped up that the discussion remains on the front burner. And that, of course, is our auditor general, the report that was compiled on some of the issues that have read their head with balances and more money than we supposed to and who doing what and all of that kind of thing. But you made a post recently on social media about some of the issues that the auditor general highlighted that have not gotten the kind of attention that probably need to in the wider discussion. The Ministry of Finance and the Auditor general, they have their preaction protocol letters and they go sort the business out and all of that kind of thing. But you've raised some of what could amount to criminal acts that probably need investigation. Tell us more about some of those, some of what you've probably seen and some of what you're speaking about.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: Well, firstly, the reports. Now the only way you can see what for certain that the, what the auditor general's findings are with respect to the public accounts of the country is if the report is laid and that has not been done in accordance with the Constitution and the requirements of the Exchequer and Audit act, it has not been laid in parliament because the government has intervened and basically blocked it by bringing a motion to the parliament to extend time for them to submit additional accounts which they are saying the auditor general did not receive and consider. I consider that in light of the information that was published yesterday in the express, particularly, I consider that to be very, a very misleading statement because it appears that the auditor general did, in fact, receive the accounts. And there was a back and forth between herself and the Ministry of Finance and Comptroller of accounts and other agencies trying to verify what they were saying. And having not been satisfied with some of it, the auditor general went ahead and published her report that is a report that tells the public about the findings with respect to the public accounts, public monies, revenue and expenditure.
It has been placed in the public domain by one member of the opposition who had some insight and received some information. And I've seen pictures of pages purporting to be from that report circulated on social media. And I did re share it because I felt that this is information now that will add to the conversation about why is the ministry of Finance and the government, by extension, preventing that report from seeing the light of day. And, you know, there are two things. One relates to expenditure of some $26,000 to a company in Indonesia for equipment to deal with scrap metal inspectors.
I believe that the minister has now confirmed, in fact, that that expenditure was in fact incurred and that nothing was received, and that it's now the subject of a police investigation. The second thing that came about is that two ministries did not disclose the fact that a member of parliament was being paid rental income for properties. Now, the law requires that any member of parliament receiving money outside of their regular salary, as set by, by the Salaries Review Commission, that you must disclose it. They said that there are three properties being rented by an MP from the government, from an MP who is in receipt of funds for those properties, and only one was disclosed.
The auditor general felt the need, apparently, to place this in her report. But it's not about.
I mean, and I'm not saying that an MP cannot receive rental income. We have MP's who or any income outside of their salary. We have MP's because of various business interests and whatever might be receiving monies, directly or indirectly. But the fact is, it ought to have been disclosed. Now, all of these things really cannot properly be interrogated unless the report of the auditor general is laid in the parliament. And that is where I think the focus needs to remain, because I believe the government has breached the law. They have.
I keep making the analogy that this is the meritless situation all over again. You don't, you're not happy with what has been published in a report, and so you are basically preventing the report of an independent auditor from being made public when the law clearly provides for a very strict timeline and timetable, and also provides that the auditor general should not be subject to the direction and control of anyone that is, in our constitution, the highest law of the land. And what they have done is to essentially direct her and control her by preventing her report from. From being laid in the parliament, and ultimately directing her that she must now go and continue to have, um, dialogue with them while they try to change the, um, public accounts and amend them and get her to amend her reports.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: This.
[00:06:18] Speaker C: And that's a very scary situation, I think.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Um, all of what's taking place is scary for one reason or the other. And I'd probably go to the point of unprecedented. I don't know. I can't remember an auditor general, an attorney general sending a pre action or some kind of legal letter to the auditor general, and then back and forth with pre action and all these things. I don't know if that has ever happened in our country's history.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: I don't know either, because I don't know that we've ever had an attorney general who has been such.
Who has taken such a very strong political stance, as opposed to discharging his duty as guardian of democracy and the legal advisor to the state.
I don't know that this attorney general, or even the one before him, understands that an attorney general is the legal adviser of the state. The government. The government is not the cabinet. The government is not the PNM. The government is every arm of the government. Every department, every division, every ministry. That's who you are ultimately there to advise, and you are there to advise on the law, not the sworn upping of a public officer for political gain. It's very clear that when this entire debacle started off where the auditor general did not think, and I agree with her entirely, she had no authority to receive amended accounts beyond the 31 January.
At that point in time, any attorney worth their salt, more so, an attorney general would have been able to look at the law and say, that's true. However, the law provides for me to extend time. So prior to completing your report, I will go to the parliament and I will extend the time, and you can receive the accounts properly, what it is to bully and threaten the auditor general with a pre action letter. And then she recanted and accepted the accounts. Apparently, that's what's now coming out in the media. I believe she was wrong to do so. She had no authority to do it. But be that as it may, she did get it. She considered it. She did her report and lay it, and they're still not happy with what she has done, and now they're trying to block the reports. But it is, I believe, very unprecedented to see the state's lawyer sending pre action letters and threatening legal action against a functionary of the state. At that level especially, it's very, very, um.
I mean, I think we have really hit a new look with this whole incident involving these three characters, the minister of finance, the auditor general and the attorney general.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: The suggestion that somewhere, somehow, someone does not want this report laid is it's quite a statement to make some of the bits of pieces of information in the public domain. We've been hearing about 780 something million dollars they can't account for. And all of these various things obviously cause for concern. But to suggest that, well, the government, the minister of finance or somebody somewhere along the line does not want, intentionally not want the auditor general's report to be laid as is quite an allegation to level. We're talking about the possibility, if we are to accept that you're talking about a conspiracy on the levels that should, that should frighten everyone.
But at the point, at the same point in time, how realistic is the allegation? Because the auditor general's report is not something that the government can hide forever because that has to.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: Let me put it to you, let me put you this way about that, that I wouldn't call it an allegation. I would say it's an inference. I make the inference that they don't want that report laid for some reason or the other. I'm not saying it's because of what has come out in the public about the expenditure and so on, but it is, of course, had all of the preaction correspondence and the twin and throwing not hit the media and not been disclosed, we would not have known that. The government is claiming, well, firstly, that a $3.2 billion error occurred in the national accounts, which is one of a serious matter, and they tried to pass it off as some little electronic thing with the central bank. That's a $3.2 billion error. That's not a small error. So somebody has to be, you know, you have to find the root of that and deal with it, you know, and there must be some accountability. But that's one. Secondly, what is confirmed by all sides is not disagreed by anybody or refuted by the government, is that even when they discovered the error and they tried to correct it with their amended accounts, they could not account for some of the revenue that they are claiming. So that's a fact that is there. And that is something that I believe the auditor, from what I've read in the newspaper, what she said in her response, city minister of finance and the attorney general, she is saying that she wasn't satisfied with that amount, that there was no justification, the documentation isn't there, and that is serious. So it's obvious that them, having received, seen that in the report, now, and that being part of her report, they come to parliament to say the report is not to be laid in not laying it, and they're extending the time. The inference there is, they don't want the reports with that information laid. The third reason why I make that inference, that they don't want this report to see the light of day and to be laid, is because they are saying that it's incorrect information. All right? Because they are saying they could account for it. Why they haven't accounted for it yet, nobody knows. But they say they want time to sit down and go through with the auditor and prove your additional revenue. The law provides for that. It provides for something called a special report, which, after the deadline of April 30, for the report being sent by the auditor general, if at any time anything is discovered, meaning a situation like this, unaccounted for revenue expenditure that might not have been justified and documented, whatever it may be, that comes to the attention of the auditor general, the law provides for a special report to be laid, to be prepared by the auditor general and laid in parliament, and it will be read like a supplementary report to the original report. All of these reports, when they are laid in the parliament, go before the Public Accounts committee, and it could be interrogated to the full extent by any. Well, all of the members of that committee, which consists of opposition government and independent. So if it is that you have that option available to you and you choose not to use it, and instead you choose to bring a motion to stop the report from being laid and to force the auditor general, essentially, by extending the time to sit and have, receive additional information and so on, and essentially, you know, try to make or change the report, the inference is you don't want the report to see light of day. So it's not really, I wouldn't say it's an allegation, but given all the circumstances, it points to that direction. I think it's a reasonable inference based on all of the facts and what we know to be the law and what we know to be the options available.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: What are the implications of this matter dragging on to the presentation of the media review?
[00:13:41] Speaker C: Well, there are several implications. One of them would be, apparently media review, because, of course, they have to speak, you know, in the budget, they would have based their plans and policies and estimates and so on, on the estimated revenue. If there is still revenue that they cannot account for, they may very well have to address that in the media review. I don't know how they will address it.
In addition to the revenue, there's also I think what I've read in the correspondence sent, there's a lot of expenditure that they cannot provide proper documentation for. So that will certainly factor into the debate on the media review. If it is that they are moving money around or making additional supplemental allocations and so on in different areas. Normally when you have the auditor general's report and you are able to look at it, you can comment as the opposition independence anybody, you can comment on the government's plans to make supplemental allocations to different areas. If it is, for example, and I'm just throwing this out as an example, they want to come in the media review and say, listen, we're taking, we're going to allocate.
We've raked an additional revenue from higher gas prices, let's just say, right, and we're going to use that money now and make a supplemental allocation for national security. But you have, let's say, half a million or half a billion dollars that was supposedly spent by national security that you can't justify. Those things will affect the debates on our media review, you know, so that's one thing. But the bigger picture here is the international image of Trinidad and Tobago. Could you imagine if you want to do business with a company and that company doesn't have proper auditor accounts or that company it's in. It's known that that company has accounts and an order reporter has a negative sort of a slant to it, but they are hiding it. Would you want to do business with that company? If you're a big bank that lending them money or if you're an investor or something like that, would you want to do business with our company? But it's the same thing. The state of Toronto is like company and our accounts are obviously in a mess because of some error somewhere. A $3.2 billion error. And more than that, we're not prepared to publish the findings of an independent auditor. And it is now in the public domain that the independent auditor has concerns. So it's the image of Transbago that is really suffering as a result of this. And the entire process from the 31 January or whenever the error was discovered sometime in February to now has been very, very, very poorly managed. The government will say that the international image of trying Tobago is the reason why they try to quietly deal with this. Tell the auditor general, take the amended accounts, you know, whatever, whatever. Why did she go and do the reports and lay it before? But the fact that he managed to mismanage the whole thing, and had they managed it better between February and April 30 all of this could have been resolved properly if they have the ability to do so. But more than that, they could have gone about it in a way that it didn't end up in this ugly public mess, which certainly anybody looking on that understands the purpose of accounting and auditing and the constitution will see that it know this is truly a stain on the image of Shannon Zweigo.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Yeah. In all the discussions that we've had and the discussion we're having this morning, it highlights that there may be so much more to this than meets the eye and some of the insinuations about what might have happened and can't be explained and everything else is cause for concern. But I don't know if necessarily enough of the population understands what's going on here. This flies over the head of so many different people. But some of what you've highlighted and some of what has been in the public domain already is cause for concern. I, my basic limited knowledge of accounting is that if you've identified somewhere, somehow that you make more money, in order for you to identify that, there must be some trail or evidence or the other to suggest that, well, here, what, this is where this money come from, and this is how we identify that we have more money than we supposed to have and that kind of thing. So I and Mike, like many other people, they can't understand why this matter has gotten as controversial as it has. If the government is saying, well, listen, we have the evidence to support this thing, just present it. And the auditor general, I'm sure she's not an idiot. She's the auditor general. She would understand proper accounting. But it has gotten so controversial now it seems as though it's a tit for tat and that some of the interests that were being looked after in the beginning that has gone out the window. And there seems to be so many other different nuances making themselves pronounced in the entire discussion that we're having.
Let's take one or two calls to hear what people have to say. For those of you who may have joined the discussion late, we are speaking with opposition senator, that's Jayanti Lachmi Diyadh. A quick message. And when we get back, we're heading to our phone lines. Stay with us.
With us this morning, opposition center Jayanti Lachmi dial.
Let's take some of your calls, see who we have. Hello. Good morning.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: Good morning, cities. Good morning, centralism.
I want to assure you I'm speaking about this subject matter. If I were to say to the director of public prosecution, I find you taking too long on this matter when you're going to get it done. We want to know what's going on. Will I be interfering with the independence of his office? Well, unfortunately, we speak of the auditor general and if an issue developed in relation to the auditor general's work in the presentation of her report, and you develop the issue and you try to contact the auditor general, but it would appear that some or the other, the phone number they were calling was the wrong number or something because they weren't getting any response. Right. Was that an attempt to interfere with the independent attendance of office or to provide the information that they believe is necessary in order to have a complete and proper report?
[00:20:08] Speaker B: All right, thank you so much, but I think you're misrepresenting what really transpired and you're trying, but.
[00:20:13] Speaker C: Okay, so let me just clear that up a little bit. If you try to contact the auditor general to tell her, hey, there's a $3.2 billion error in what I gave you on the 31 January. Can I send you something additional? She has to have, firstly the legal authority to receive amended accounts. Any, like I keep saying, what the attorney general should have advised at that point in time, both the minister of it doesn't interfere with the independence of her office. What they should have done is go to the parliament immediately and give her that authority. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the facts are, and the facts have been published, widely published, that the accounts were sent and received and considered. So it's not that they, they. That she didn't answer the phone and refuse to receive the accounts and then went ahead and did her report. They forced her to receive the accounts. They threatened her with a preaction protocol letter and told her she must take it. And she did take it. Go and read the story in yesterday's express about the trail of emails. In fact, they list in the express yesterday the names of all the persons who they wrote to the chairman of the board of inland revenue and they wrote to the control of accounts and they set up meetings with those people. So how could you say that she wasn't answering the phone and they weren't able to contact her. She sent staff, she sent two teams of auditors to go and listen to what the people had to say about the money that they say that they find. So I don't understand why anybody is saying that. She didn't answer the phone. They said they made some effort to contact and she says she's also the office and she would contact them the next day and so on. But that is beside the point. The point is subsequent to that, and before she sent her report to the parliament, she met with them, she sent staff, and if they can't justify all of the revenue, that is saying that they find what you want a woman to do, you want her to lie. It's a pair. Somebody want her to lie. That's what it seems. They wanted her to lie in her report and say, oh, yes, we. $3.2 billion. Well, yeah, it's that much more revenue because somebody wants to make themselves look good on the public accounts when they can't justify it. That's not what an auditor does.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Let's take another call.
[00:22:30] Speaker C: Hello.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:22:31] Speaker D: Good morning. Satish to Mister Senator Lash medial. You are one of my favorite persons in the parliament at the moment. I really look forward to your contributions.
Having said that.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:22:42] Speaker D: I listened to the finance minister and he basically wash his hands like Pontius Pilates at the entire issue by saying that his people are accusing the auditor general of having the documents, while the auditor general, on the other hand, is saying she don't have the documents. Now, taking into my understanding of the history of these people, I know who to believe. I suspect I know who's telling the truth and who's not telling the truth. But looking at this entire issue and the share quantum of the sum involved, do you think that the time has come, maybe, to recommend a forensic audit? I think the matter has gotten beyond the scope of the ministry of finance, and I think somebody outside of that department should be investigating this matter, because such a person or persons ought not to remain in the Ministry of Finance. It would be dangerous. And I think that somebody external should be given the task of investigating this matter and separating the sheep from the goat. I listen to your comments of the year, ma'am.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: Thank you very much.
[00:23:44] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I actually, you know, I agree with you. And I made that comment last week. I think it was on tv. Six had interviewed me, and I said, the ministers, you know, wait on the outcome of the investigation. Who is investigating? This government has a history of himself investigating himself. I don't want to hear what the Ministry of Finance investigates and finds out. I want an independent investigation. Because this investigation, and I said it before, it must start with, why does error occurred in the first place? If they say it's a central bank, you must investigate them. If it is that there are elements of control of accounts, the treasury division, the, you know, the Board of Inland Revenue, all of those departments that were unable to provide the documents for this expenditure, then they must be in, you know, there must be an investigation there as well. And if it is that they are saying they provided it and the auditor general is saying she doesn't have it, but, you know, the point is, the correspondence that has been disclosed and is in the public domain and the government has not refuted, is that out of this 3.2 billion that they said they discovered after the 31 January, $780 million still hasn't been accounted for. And there is memoranda in the public domain published in the newspaper, written by the Comptroller of accounts to the auditor general, where they admit that of the 3.2 billion, only two point something has been accounted for and that they have been able to verify and justify whether she is satisfied with their justification or not. That's a debate between the both of them. But I agree, somebody needs, independent of both those sets of people, Ministry of Finance and Auditor General and all the other parties and players in this whole thing need to come in and investigate. And that's the only way that I think we would have any confidence in all these very. I mean, these are departments handling our money, essentially, and, you know, you must have public confidence in them. And I, at this point in time, I have absolutely zero confidence in many arms of the state, not least of which is the ministry of finance and the way that they have handled this matter. And, you know, if what they are trying to do by saying that the auditor general is wrong and she hasn't properly done her job is to also diminish confidence in that office, and that's a very troubling thing. So we really have to have an independent investigation.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Doctor Valmiki Arjun, a UA economist, has raised a scary possibility that this may not have been the first time that something like this has happened. It's the first time that legal letters were sent.
What's your opinion?
So, I don't know.
[00:26:36] Speaker C: I haven't. Perhaps that's a question I should be direct to the auditor general. I don't. I don't think that it would be the first time that you may have questions being raised by an auditor general over certain things contained in the public accounts. Because at the end of the day, there should walk. That's what the woman has, what the auditor general's department is there to do. They're there to question and interrogate the public accounts and test the veracity of what is there and what is applied to her. So the reason why the law sets out a timeline is because it is mandatory that the accounts be received by the end of January and that the auditor general is given a period of time between January 31 and April 30 to interrogate those accounts. During that period of time, there's always an audit. If anybody has ever been audited, if you've ever been audited by Inland Revenue, by some of nib conduct or like something like an audit, if you run a business and you've got, you've had your own accounts audited, that's what an audit is. It's a toing and throwing and an examination of the accounts, and it's a check and balance on what you have presented as your accounts. Right. So I don't doubt that every year the auditor general asks for further information for justification and different things like that and documentation to substantiate claims of revenue and all of that.
This year, though, it's, I think what happened is that the amount of the monies in question, and then again, the manner in which it was handled, the auditor general is saying that what this applied to her in April when she agreed to accept the accounts, I think is the 15 April she's saying she received these things, is that the accounts were backdated and they certified this as being true and correct as at the 31 January, and they didn't even show, they just slipped the old figures out and slipped the new ones in and they did not show what amendments were actually made. And she was dissatisfied with that. So I don't know if it ever happened before in that manner. But this isn't easy. First time we are hearing about it so publicly and it's, you know, so much of a controversy. Again, I say entirely because of the mismanagement of the entire thing by the office of the Attorney general and by extension the Ministry of Finance. We probably got bad advice to begin with, but I think that, yeah, it certainly was not handled the way it ought to have been handled.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: Senator, this is where we're going to have to drop the curtains on our interview, the phones ringing off the hook. So we may need to have another discussion, depending on how things unfold. We know the government well.
[00:29:13] Speaker C: This seems to be an ongoing soap opera, so I'm sure we'll have further discussions in the future because you always.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Have new developments taking place that need some kind of clarification, some kind of comment on the other.
And I know that there are other things with you that I'd like to discuss, but those are discussions for another time. I know that you've file your nomination. I think it's for two constituencies or whatever else. So when, when that gets sorted out, however, is sorted out, I'm sure that we'll have other discussions with you. I want to thank you for being with us here this morning and giving your perspective, sharing some insight into some of these matters that need to be explained to the population one way or the other. Thank you for being with us here this morning.
[00:29:54] Speaker C: Thanks again for, have a good day.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: You as well. And that, of course. Ladies and gentlemen, the curtains on our interview here this morning.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
