The PPP has called out AFC Leader and now Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan on his “deafening silence” regarding the appointment of Finance Minister Winston Jordan as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).
Ramjattan, while in opposition, had criticized the Finance Minister chairing the government holding company saying that it was a conflict of interest.
In a statement, the PPP said that on the surface, Jordan’s appointment looks normal and, as a matter of fact, it is customary. “However, the point of contention is Ramjattan’s defiant opposition of Dr. Ashni Singh, then Minister of Finance being the Chairman of NICIL…” the PPP said while pointing to a letter by Ramjattan in the press.
In the letter, published in Stabroek News in May 2012, Ramjattan had written that under Section 48 of the Public Corporations Act, NICIL has to keep accounts to the satisfaction of the minister and the accounts are to be audited by an auditor appointed by the minister. He had said that the minister, under section 2 of the Act means the minister who has been assigned responsibility for public corporations.
“It is the understanding of the AFC that Dr Ashni Singh as Minister of Finance is the minister who has been de facto assigned responsibility for public corporations, thus creating quite a dilemma since he is also the Chairman of NICIL. I believe he is in a conflict of interest position because he cannot have ministerial supervision over a company for which he also holds the senior executive post of Chairman of the Board. This is ridiculous and makes a mockery of the statutory provisions which do not contemplate this situation,” Ramjattan wrote.
“But it gets worse,” he had said while pointing to Section 346(1) of the Companies Act 1991 which requires NICIL to submit to the Minister of Finance within six months after the end of each calendar year (ie, in June of each year) a report containing: (a) an account of its transactions in the preceding calendar year, and (b) a statement of the accounts of the company audited under the provisions of Sections 48 and 49 of the Public Corporations Act.
“This means that Dr Ashni Singh as both Chairman of NICIL and the responsible minister under the Public Corporations Act will in effect be submitting audited accounts to himself. This is a most ridiculous state of affairs,” Ramjattan had written.
“The statutes intended that there be ministerial oversight of government companies. But here we have a situation where the Minister is overseeing himself, so to speak,” he wrote.
In its statement, the PPP said that what is ridiculous and alarming is Ramjattan’s “deafening silence on the matter which he, while in the opposition, appeared to be opposing.” The PPP called on Ramjattan to make public, his position on the appointment of Jordan as Chairman of the Board of Directors of NICIL.
Ramjattan, in the same letter had said that the AFC will continue its crusade and lobby in every quarter for transparency and accountability. “This is the bounden duty of this generation of leaders,” he had said while adding that the AFC will be relentless in this quest for full transparency and complete accountability “from our present day sahibs and sultans.”
In his accountability column in today’s Stabroek News, former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran maintained his criticism of a minister chairing a state board.
He said “Statutory bodies and other entities in which controlling interest vests in the State are created to provide them with a reasonable degree of autonomy and flexibility to manage their affairs free of Ministerial and political influence. The subject Minister sets policies, and these are executed by the management of the organization with oversight by a Board of Directors appointed by the Minister or by Cabinet. It follows that Ministers ought not to be members of State boards. The situation is compounded by the fact that some Ministers are chairpersons of these boards. When this happens, an important aspect of checks and balances is lost in that the Minister as chairperson of a board reports to himself/herself as the subject Minister!”
