The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Monday requested that Finance Secretary Dr Hector Butts compile for the Attorney-General a comprehensive list of cases for which various government agencies are awaiting his advice.
Butts was also asked to construct a matrix of outstanding police reports that are affecting the reconciliation of these agencies’ accounts.
Four agencies appeared before the PAC when it met at the Public Buildings on Monday. During the presentations by the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority (formerly the Deeds Registry), the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security (now Ministry of Social Protection), Ministry of Home Affairs (now Ministry of Public Security) and the Guyana Police Force, it was noted that for several matters the respective agency “is still engaging the Ministry of Legal Affairs for advice on the way forward.”
APNU+AFC Member of Parliament and member of the PAC Charrandass Persaud raised concerns about the length of time being allowed to elapse while seeking advice from the Legal Affairs Ministry.
Persaud referenced a case presented by the former Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security in which the ministry was unable to recover monies from a contractor who had done construction work on the Ministry’s head office. Asked to explain why it had been unable to recover monies paid to the contractor for work he had not completed, the ministry noted that it had been advised by the Solicitor General “that it would not be possible to bring an action against the contractor for breach of contract to recover the sum overpaid or any other sum as damages for breach of contract as any such action was statute barred.”
According to Persaud, looking at the number of cases awaiting the Attorney General’s advice over a lengthy period of time, the government may also soon be barred by statute of limitations from recovering those monies.
“We are looking at 2013/2014 and 2015 is done, so we may encounter the same problem here,” he said.
As a result of Persaud’s concerns, Chairman of the PAC and PPP/C MP Irfaan Ali requested that the Finance Secretary compile for the Attorney General a comprehensive list of cases for which various government agencies are awaiting his advice.
PAC member and Minister of Social Protection Volda Lawrence also suggested that a list of outstanding police reports be submitted to the relevant authority so that those can be resolved in a timely manner.
“What about the many police reports?” Lawrence asked. “I’ve been on the PAC for a long time—I’m getting grey—and we are still awaiting police reports. We get a lot of promises but nothing is happening and the same way they approached it previously is the same thing being done now.”
Ali, as requested, directed that a matrix of those cases also be prepared and presented.
Additional questions were raised about the PAC’s ability to enforce its recommendations and decisions.
Persaud noted that several “discrepancies” are consistently being highlighted at the level of the PAC and yet they continue to be repeated.
“Some of these discrepancy seem to be like a recurring decimal; they are supposed to be fixed, they are not fixed, they come back again and you look at it another year and another year and it’s still there. As the PAC how long are we supposed to allow one particular set of discrepancy to continue? Do we have any authority to push for enforcement?” Persaud asked.
Ali reassured that the PAC indeed has power to ensure compliance.
“The Finance Secretary, who is an advisor to this process, has wide ranging powers and he has been very proactive in writing a number of agencies that have appeared before us. We have been seeing a lot of results recently in relation to the response to the Finance Secretary. We do have enough powers in the committee and within our advisors to place sanctions and take action,” Ali said.
He did not state what those powers are.
The PAC, which must be chaired by a member of the opposition in the National Assembly, has among its functions the responsibility for examining “the audited accounts, as presented in the Auditor General’s Report, showing the appropriation of sums granted by the National Assembly to meet public expenditure and such other accounts laid before the Assembly as the Assembly may refer to it.”
The present PAC is currently examining the audited accounts of government agencies for the years 2013 and 2014.
In addition to Ali, the opposition members on the PAC are Nigel Dharamlall, Juan Edghill and Pauline Sukhai, while the government members include Lawrence, Persaud, Audwin Rutherford and Jermaine Figuiera.
