The opposition yesterday reiterated its objections to ministers being allowed to sit on key parliamentary oversight committees, saying that it would not bode well for transparency and accountability as they could face potential conflicts of interest.
During a sitting of the National Assembly yesterday, the House passed motions to enable the continuation of work that was started by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the sectoral committees on economic services and social services during the last Parliament
While the PPP/C announced its support for the motions, its members raised concerns about ministers being members of the committees.
The first motion called for the current PAC for the first session of the Eleventh Parliament to take into account all outstanding work of the previous committee. Irfaan Ali, the mover of the motion, was not present but PPP/C Chief Whip Gail Teixeira spoke on his behalf.
“We still feel that the presence of ministers on the Public Accounts Committee… goes against the grain of the constitution and the standing orders,” she said, before adding that the opposition recognises that the PAC’s work involves the oversight and accountability of government expenditure. “Therefore the presence of two ministers…we want to register on our side of the House, that we are totally opposed to this as it does create conflict of interest and it can compromise the ministers themselves and even the PAC,” she said.
She noted that a number of reports from the last committee, which was chaired by Carl Greenidge, now foreign minister, are still pending.
Social Protection Minister Volda Lawrence, in response, said that government supported the motion so as to allow the continuation of transparency and accountability.
The second motion addressed the outstanding work of the Economic Services Committee.
According to government MP Jaipaul Sharma, the committee is presently scrutinising GuySuCo, and particularly the closure of the Wales Estate. He said that following newspaper reports and comments made by the public on the situation, the committee has been looking at the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) report on GuySuCo. “I am not happy to report to this House that since we commenced the deliberation, we did not (have) the support of the opposition in terms of attendance at the various session of the committee,” he said, before adding that the opposition had chosen to use this issue as “a political football.”
He said that it is in the committee that both sides are supposed to be putting their heads together to do the “work we are elected to do.”
Sharma, responding to Teixeira’s comments about ministers sitting on the committees, opined that the opposition should take advantage of the fact that ministers are very busy and take command. “I wonder why in that case they didn’t attend the Economic Services Committee, where they would have the opportunity to debate…and represent their constituency,” he said.
Teixeira from the onset said that opposition supported the motion. She said that these motions are procedural so that the committees can continue their work.
She said that the announcement of the closure of Wales Estate preempted the discussion of the CoI report on GuySuCo. She said that a part of the report states clearly that it will not recommend the closure of any estate due to the dislocation such an act would cause to communities and the economy. Defending the non-attendance of opposition members to committee meetings, she questioned why the report should be discussed when it has been “overtaken by a decision of the government to close Wales Estate and therefore one of the key recommendations of the CoI has been cast aside. So please, we will be there and we will fight and we will work together. However, on the CoI into GuySuCo, it has become an almost academic exercise.”
Teixeira, on the issue of ministers sitting on parliamentary committees, pointed out that four such persons are sitting on the Economic Services Committee. She made it clear that while the PPP/C was in power no minister sat on this committee.
“Of the five members on the government side in the Economic Services Committee, there are four ministers. Isn’t that a bit greedy? Aren’t you being greedy? Because you have ten or twelve MPs who are not ministers. You can’t put them on the committee? You don’t trust them? They not able?” she asked.
Opposition MP Dr Vindhya Persaud raised a similar argument with respect to the motion on the outstanding work of the Social Services Commit-tee. She said that there is no objectivity when a minister sits on a committee which deals with matters related to his or her portfolio. “We are very disturbed and disappointed and it does not lend to the vision of our country where we want to see more objectivity, transparency and accountability and I feel if we want to proceed in a manner where this sector can be recognised for the work that it is doing, we need to rectify this,” she added.
She also called for there to be more women and non-ministerial persons on the committee, “so that the work of this committee can proceed in a very transparent way.”
