With an ongoing battle between government and the opposition over the Chairmanship delaying the work of the Public Accounts Committee, the reconstitution of the Public Procurement Commis-sion (PPC) has also been stalled.
Minister of Public Works and government representative on the PAC Juan Edghill told Stabroek News that the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) wants a functioning PPC and is “pretty alarmed by the dysfunctionality” of the committee, which is responsible for selecting the commissioners.
He admitted that this has halted the process of getting the commission in place.
“We want to get on with the deliberations. We want to get the nominations, agreements, review the applications …we want the commission sworn in and we want it functional because we are committed to transparency and accountability,” Edghill added.
The PAC is responsible for nominating the five members of the commission and then taking it to the National Assembly for its approval by no less than two thirds of the 65-member House.
When the Commission is established, the five members vote to decide who will be the Chairperson of the body.
The government has been seeking the removal of PAC Chairperson David Patterson over him allegedly receiving high priced gifts from agencies he was responsible for when he was Minister of Public Infra-structure. He has resisted all attempts to remove him as PAC chair.
A motion for Patterson’s removal was laid in the Commit-tee last month by Minister of Governance and Parliamen-tary Affairs Gail Teixeira. It calls for Patterson to recuse himself as Chair due to a lack of confidence on the part of the government. No other justification for the motion has been provided in the Committee.
The February 1 meeting of the Committee stalled after Patterson recused himself from the Chair during the consideration of the motion and all other opposition members refused to take his place. The same thing happened on March 15.
The stalemate at the PAC has stalled key work, including examination of the backlogged reports of the Office of the Auditor General on the Public Accounts of Guyana and the initiation of the process for the selection of new members of the PPC.
Edghill told Stabroek News last Friday that he is hoping that there would be a meeting in the next two weeks and the business of the people can move forward.
“There is an indication that there could be a meeting by the 6th of April. They are checking on availability. The Clerk of the National Assembly has received his legal opinion which is circulated to the committee, so I say by two weeks’ time,” he said.
Edghill also put the opposition on notice that government would want reciprocated the same 3:2 quota, in favour of government, that was used when the commission was established in 2016, if there is no consensus on all five nominees.
“We expect that the principle would remain constant and consistent with the agreement that has been made and those decisions made by the government side at the PAC, while we were deliberating at the PAC. If you can’t get a consensus on all five, then government [gets] three [persons] and opposition two from the pool of shortlisted persons,” he stressed.
“While we were in opposition, it was agreed to that government must have three [persons] [and the] opposition must have two of those finally approved and nominated. While they were in government, they had three and we took two. We are saying three for government and two for opposition now,” he added.
Asked if government already had persons it wanted to nominate, Edghill said no and added that it will wait on the notice of a call for persons to fill the vacancies and the PAC’s decision after it has gone through the process. “We want a governance structure for oversight and accountability,” he added.
In 2016, more than 13 years after Guyana’s Constitution was amended to provide for the PPC and after much political haggling, the procurement oversight body was established.
Taking the oath of office were Carol Corbin, Nanda Gopaul, Emily Dodson, Sukrishnalall Pasha and Ivor English.
The five would later choose Corbin, a former project management professional and accountant with decades of experience working at the CARICOM Secretariat, as the Chairperson of the commission.
