Acting Auditor General sworn in

GARY PETERS, acting Deputy Auditor General, swore the oath of office to act as auditor general before acting President Nigel de Freitas in a ceremony at the Office of the President on August 12.

The position has been held by Jaiwantie Ramdass.

A statement from the Office of the President said, "After graduating from Mc Gill University in Montreal, Mr Peters began in 1991 what was to be 33 years’ experience in the public sector.

"After five years as a labour relations officer in the Ministry of Labour, he joined the Auditor General’s Department and by 2013 had worked his way up to be Assistant Auditor General, a position he still holds.

"His Excellency congratulated Mr Peters and wished him every success in the new position," the statement concluded.

Newsday contacted former attorney general Anand Ramlogan to ask the whereabouts of his client, Ramdass.

He replied, "She is fine. She went on vacation. That's all."

Ramdass has been at loggerheads with Finance Minister Colm Imbert for refusing to accept further documents submitted late by the ministry for her audit of the 2023 Public Accounts.

The Government had asked her to consider its inadvertent $2.6 billion omission from the accounts, and got Parliament to grant her a time extension to submit the corrected accounts and her report on them.

Imbert initiated an investigation under retired Justice David Harris into the imbroglio, although critics fear it risked the Government's intruding on the independence of the constitutionally-protected office of Auditor General.