Former Finance Minister Carl Greenidge yesterday said that it is important that the National Assembly be poised to intelligently examine and effectively debate matters surrounding the accountability of the use of public resources and allegations of corruption in the procurement process.
“As accountability is looming increasingly large in the debate over the use of public resources and as the plague of corruption and inadequate safeguards in the arena of procurement displace other debates in the press, it is imperative that the National Assembly be in a position to mount intelligent examinations and effective debates into these matters,” Greenidge, now APNU MP and Shadow Finance Minister, said during the opening ceremony of a two-day parliamentary workshop.
The workshop, on Working with Parliamentary Oversight Committees, is being facilitated by the Canadian Comprehensive Audit Foundation (CCAF), a research and educational foundation in Canada which aims to strengthen public sector accountability. It is intended specifically to benefit members of the Public Accounts Committee and Economic Services Sectoral Committee but all Members of Parliament (MPs) were invited.
Greenidge, in his address to about 20 MPs and several staffers from Parliament Office and the Audit Office, noted that the need for MPs to be familiar with the general processes and functions of Parliament is “so obvious that it shouldn’t be necessary for me to justify it in more than a sentence, namely to enable members to properly participate in that process and to facilitate their effective performance in the task to which they have been elected or appointed to the Parliament.”
Greenidge, who is the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), told the gathering that the greater the MPs’ knowledge and understanding about the intricacies of the process, the public will be more assured that they can represent its interests. Making reference to the workshop, he said that the intention is to examine and explore the role of the PAC in the overall budgetary oversight function of Parliament. He explained that the workshop will explore the means and modalities available to ensure effective overseeing of the budgetary process.
According to Greenidge, the principle of no taxation without representation is “so well known as to need no further explanation but the simplicity of the principle is not matched by a straight forward budgetary regime. The public is often confused by the idea of a Committee of Supply let alone the machinations of a Public Accounts Committee, report tablings, hearings etc.”
He noted that “what is true of the public is also true of MPs.” He stated that the documents are numerous and so are the various rules and protocols. The workshop he said should help in part to de-mystify the process. “It is not intended as and should not be a seen, as some clearly have, as a seditious attempt to turn MPs into anti-government radicals. It is a fairly transparent and well intended effort at education and empowerment,” he said. The gathering was told that in recognition of this fact, members of the PAC have in the past agreed to accept offers by the CCAF to hold workshops for the benefit of MPs, among others. For this workshop, he said all MPs were invited and he further expressed the hope that they would take advantage of it to raise their overall level of understanding and competence in the area of parliamentary oversight.
The workshop will cover a variety of areas, including the overall process of budgetary oversight as it takes place in Guyana as well as elsewhere in constitutional arrangements similar to Guyana.
Greenidge said that the key area around which the work of the PAC turns is the Report of the Auditor General (AG) and the Estimates. The types of answers that can be sought, the role of the AG and the government ministries and their responsibilities in this exercise are not always fully understood, he noted. “MPs need to understand the different approaches and tools and their relevance to the problems that plague us,” he said.
The facilitators of the workshop are John Moseworthy, former Auditor General of Newfoundland, Canada and Geoff Durbrow, of the Canadian Comprehensive Audit Foundation.
Among the MPs present were Joseph Harmon, Juan Edghill, Desmond Trotman, Richard Allen, Volda Lawrence and Dr Vindhya Persaud. Acting Auditor General Deodat Sharma was also in attendance yesterday.
