‘A law unto itself’

“If the Republic envisioned 40 years ago was working effectively by now the Auditor General’s office that is appointed by the President would have launched a separate and independent investigation into the accounting practices at that Office.

Because there is enough information now in the public domain, whether from traditional media or from new media, to warrant an investigation into accounting practices from public offices such as that,” she commented.

She said the Parliament can also exercise its power and the Public Accounts Committee and “can easily convene a hearing of the accounting staff and the Office of the President and that would lead to a proper and public query into the allegations that have been put forward in regards to things like housing allowance and travel expenses”.

Bharath was one of the panellists last night at the Re-Launch of the Citizens’ Intervention held at the CLR James Auditorium, Cipriani College of Labour and Co-Operative Studies, Valsayn.

“I know that these days my face is very much associated with President’s House and bottles of wine and I do intend to talk about transparency and accountability where the President’s House is concerned but I also want to discuss it within the wider framework of the public sector and checks and balances within the public sector because I think that is where we keep falling down,” she commented.

She said the President handles responsibilities of appointments to the Independent Bench and to commissions and despite the belief that it is a “rubber stamp situation” when you look at the various institutions that the President has under his portfolio and the appointments he can and cannot make “it turns out that the Office of the President does have a significant amount of power in how the public sector and how transparency and accountability works in Trinidad and Tobago”.

“Yet 40 years later we find ourselves in a peculiar position of questioning the efficacy and integrity of members of our public service who work at the Office of the President as well as the efficiency and integrity of the office holder himself,” she said. In a blog posted on Facebook Bharath had questioned accounting practices at the Office of the President and a $2 million discrepancy in the Auditor General’s report.

Carmona defended himself on the issue and lashed out at “armchair journalists” during his Republic Day address and also spoke on it at a subsequent media briefing.

Last night Bharat said: “Forty years later the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago are treated to the peculiar event of the President using his Republic Day address to attack members of the traditional media as well as persons that he referred to as ‘armchair journalists’. And a mere four days later used another national address to treat with allegations against his Office and the substantive argument at the end of that address I think is a questionable argument.” “To the average onlooker the Office of the President has gone from being an independent office that aids in the separation of powers and the strengthening of democracy into becoming a law unto itself but it could only have done this with the assistance and compliance with public servants and perhaps is the far more important point I wish to make,” she said.