Don’t exhale yet.
Recent judgment quashing the Finance Ministry’s audit report of the LifeSport programme does not close the book on LifeSport, since the police and Attorney General are continuing probes into these “matters,” Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said yesterday.
“Police certified up to yesterday (Mon) there is an ongoing probe into LifeSport matters and it’s continuing. Action (probe) which is afoot in several quarters is undisturbed by the judgment and I would not be too comfortable if I was some people in their new found bravery and public utterances,” Al-Rawi added at a media briefing at his office at Government Campus, Port-of-Spain.
“I’m not going to let the cats out of the bags and allow the prize to escape,” he stressed.
The AG was addressing questions on what may come next regarding LifeSport issues after Justice Mira Dean-Armorer on Monday ruled the Finance Ministry Audit Unit had conducted the LifeSport audit unfairly and quashed the report.
Yesterday, Al-Rawi said the judge stated the audit had failed to give former Sport Ministry Permanent Secretary Ashwin Creed and programme directors Cornelius Price, Theodore Charles and Ronnel Barclay (claimants in the matter) chance to respond to allegations against them before the final report was laid in Parliament by former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
The judge said their right to natural justice was infringed and the auditors failed to inform the officials before the report was aired publicly and awarded costs.
Persad-Bissessar, at a United National Congress meeting on Monday night, had boasted that the ruling now cleared the way for former sport minister Anil Roberts, who presided over LifeSport, to return to UNC frontline. Roberts also declared vindication.
But yesterday, Al-Rawi hinted at future action on LifeSport, noting there are other matters around it “which are receiving very careful focused attention.”
Declining details, he confirmed there was nothing in the law of the judgment to block criminal probes and such a probe by the police was not compromised.
However, he admitted the judgment was hard to appeal. On whether civil action would be undertaken by his ministry, Al-Rawi said: “We’re addressing all matters. I’m not going to speak prematurely.”
He said continuing probes don’t require the finance audit report specifically and another audit report didn’t have to be done, since future investigations could be based on the substance of the report and other information which had been received on LifeSport.
“Another audit isn’t the way to go. Matters need to go to court. The substance of the allegations are there. They’re very actionable and they are with the respective authorities and are being acted upon.”
The AG deemed the LifeSport matter “Section 35”, following the controversial Section 34 fiasco under the past People’s Partnership administration.
He blamed the breaches noted in the court matter on Persad-Bissessar. He said she put the report into the public domain when she laid it in Parliament on July 25, 2014.
Al-Rawi said she knew Creed and the other officials had not commented on allegations in the report and she knew the report would have eventually been quashed.
“It’s curious she’s now distanced herself from her own actions and welcomes back Mr Roberts,” he said.
Al-Rawi revealed that former finance minister Larry Howai, then supervisor of the Audit Unit, had been told there was a need for people against whom allegations were made to respond and that the report ought not to be made public until that was done.
He said Howai gave a July 18 deadline for that and presented all of that, “caveat and all,” to Persad-Bissessar.
“She should have known public airing of the report prematurely would have been a breach of law against the officials regarding whom allegations were made... she seems to have done some things very purposefully, since when Mr Creed was at the Prime Minister’s Office when she was there, she never sent the audit report to the Public Service Commission for probe. It was only done under the PNM and he resigned.”
Al-Rawi noted Robert’s resignation letter also protested the report was flawed and lacked natural justice principles. Howai didn’t reply to questions on the judgment yesterday, including if he knew the audit report had not had input from Creed and others.
Audit null and void, says lawyer
One of Ashwin Creed’s attorneys, Peter Taylor, said yesterday the audit report was now null and void, since its integrity had been impugned.
Speaking during CNC3’s Morning Brew, Taylor said it was of “no value” as the audit team had not given claimants an opportunity to respond to its allegations.
He said there had also been a breach of their expectations to be heard in the report, noting it was not a technical loophole that allowed the judge to reach her decision. Taylor said the principles of natural justice required input from them. But he said the “next thing” that happened was the former prime minister “was reading the report in Parliament.”
Taylor said, however, that Persad-Bissessar didn’t err in releasing the report, since those in authority should have told her there had not been any opportunity for the officials to be heard in the report.
He said even if the Finance Minister, governing the audit division, wanted the report urgently, the audit team should have advised him the report didn’t have the officials’ side of the story.
“You can’t sacrifice procedure and principle on the altar of political expediency,” Taylor said, adding the report was done hastily.