Dear Editor,
I notice the latest development involving the work of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and can only conclude the worst. What it does confirm is that the PPP Government is hell bent on thwarting, if not neutralizing altogether, whatever mechanisms that are in place, and over which it does not have total control. It is part fear, part its system of covering over likely skullduggeries concerning the spending of taxpayers’ billions, and part of the continuum of these games that party and government play. They have the means to do so, and the all too willing agents to engage in these blatant activities that effectively bring the work of the PAC to a grinding halt.
In trade union language, the PAC is having a work stoppage. In army terms, it is away without leave (AWOL), or missing in action (MIA). Whatever the choice preferred, the PAC is dead in the water. The worst was anticipated when the PPP-orchestrated and engineered change was made to the quorum requirements of the PAC. Since then, the requirement that a government minister be present, has almost always resulted in one not being available to attend the PAC meetings. Of course, ministers are busier than ever before, and they have ever-intensifying demands on their time. In less strenuous times, that was what prevailed; now, in these times of great developments and movements, I can understand that ministers, any minister, could be pulled six ways to Sunday, with the rest of the week still unaddressed.
But, for PAC meetings to be held ransom to the change now official, and for a minister to be conveniently absent, only speaks to what is a combination of crafty strategy and not so subtle subterfuge. It is in these glaring instances, these situations that point to how and what the real PPP is, and the many slick maneuvers it uses in continuing pretenses at clean governance in this country, that strip its leaders and spokespeople of credibility, and thoughts of assigning them some long overdue belief about integrity. The President, himself, has been very vocal about much he and his government are about transparency and accountability. Yet, when I learn of the PAC not meeting, not for the first time, due to a most likely groomed and, hence, absentee minister, then any inclination falls apart in giving His Excellency some credit for trying, and delivering, in the two vital areas of transparency and accountability.
Surrounding circumstances considered, I can appreciate why it was so imperative to make official that new PAC requirement, and then to implement, viz., bringing the meetings to a standstill; or a group that really does not have an existence of meaning, for all intents and purposes. Fellow citizens should consider what is at work here in the threads and how they connect. Oil money and borrowed money and budgeted money from other sources are up for grabs like never before. There is a suspicious and tendering system lacking quality, and awards to mainly people who are known PPP cronies. Infrastructure is the bright idea that burns a large hole in the ambitions and calculations of the political and contractor classes. It gobbles huge amounts of taxpayers’ money, and over which the PAC is the last sentinel of sorts standing. When it is rendered prostrate, then it is reduced to a body plagued by a chronic and paralyzing prostate condition. It can’t move. It can’t function. And as said before, it might as well not exist, so effectively is its work stymied.
Audit reports, revealing contractor failures, and public servants’ farces at the central or regional level, are all swept under the carpet for the time being, or subjected to a state of indefinite suspension. Perhaps, the comrades and insiders are fixing their books, and their mouths, in the event that they are called to testify. That is, if they can be found. If ministers based in Georgetown, Guyana (not Georgetown Washington) cannot be found, then who can be found elsewhere? And since the PAC itself has been relegated to the lost and not found department, it simply languishes in a barren no man’s land. If this is clean government, then I will settle for the convulsions of chaos. Last, if this is transparency and accountability, then I will take two shots of Johnnie Walker. Make them blue, and double, please. Lent notwithstanding.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall