Over the next few months the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will meet twice weekly in an attempt to clear its four-year backlog, new Chairman Jermaine Figueira has said.
The decision was made at the first meeting of the PAC under his stewardship on Wednesday when the committee all agenda items, including the establishment of a special select committee to shortlist potential members of the Public Procurement Commission, were addressed.
The next meeting is scheduled for Monday.
“On Monday we will continue with the Guyana Defence Force to other agencies. There are about six paragraphs remaining under that agency. We [also] have several reports from the AG’s office and that too will be on the agenda. Additionally, I’m prepared to address the issue of the request made by the president for the AG to conduct an audit of the allocation for the COVID-19 relief grant. We will ask the AG after he has answered questions on the various reports his office would’ve prepared to give us an update on the progress of the president’s request for that audit to be done,” Figueira explained.
Figueira was elected chair last Friday at a meeting called by Speaker Manzoor Nadir following the recent removal of former Chair David Patterson via a no-confidence motion.
Following a four-month standoff, Patterson was removed via majority vote in the National Assembly ostensibly for violations of the Committee’s Standing Orders.
The specific conduct attributed to Patterson was a failure to “put” a motion for his removal to the Committee before vacating the seat of Chair at four consecutive meetings. Patterson is also accused of refusing to adhere to a direction from the Speaker that he put the motion to a vote.
During the five-hour debate before the motion’s passage, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Gail Teixeira claimed that while examining the Auditor General’s report issues raised were strongly put down by Patterson in his position as Chair.
“There was a lack of tolerance… and therefore Mr Speaker I was the one who called on the Chair to resign,” Teixeira declared during the debate of the motion amidst loud heckles of “shame” from members of the opposition.
The minister did not identify which issues were ‘strongly put down” and this explanation for the motion differed distinctly from the government’s previous suggestion that Patterson should resign because of accusations of impropriety during his previous tenure as Minister of Public Infrastructure.
