It could only be wished that the government would stop the pretence. Despite their protestations to the contrary they exhibit neither accountability nor transparency, so their insistence that they adhere to both only reinforces an image of hypocrisy. While there is no dearth of examples, a recent, if ongoing case, leaves no room for doubt. That is the lack of meetings of the Public Accounts Committee over an extended period of time, which is nothing short of scandalous.
The PAC consists of nine members, five of which come from the government side and four from the opposition. The rules require that one of the latter is in the Chair. The purpose of the Committee is to ensure accountability in government expenditure, and the intention is that it should scrutinise the Auditor General’s report after that is laid in Parliament, and then in turn submit its own conclusions to the National Assembly. Thereafter the government would respond in the form of a Treasury Memorandum where it would state what actions it had taken or would take in relation to the PAC’s findings and recommendations. As Mr Goolsarran has explained, this ideally should be completed within twelve months of the end of the fiscal year, because it is “undesirable” that the Assembly should approve the estimates for the coming year “without first ensuring that a full and proper account has been rendered for the amounts allocated in the previous year.”
That sequence is simply not happening within the time-frame required because the government has resorted to various stratagems to see that it doesn’t happen. At an early stage the Chairman had proposed holding two meetings per week in order to clear the backlog and bring the work up to date, but that was not approved by the PPP/C. Following the government’s resort to Parliament in April last year to change the PAC’s quorum from three to five – two from either side of the Committee plus the Chairman – there have been a whole series of meeting cancellations beginning May 23rd, making review of the accounts impossible. Last week’s aborted meeting was the eleventh in the sequence. Any self-respecting government should be embarrassed by such dereliction.
In a statement of unbelievable disingenuousness AG Anil Nandlall at the time of the quorum change said that it augured well for accountability in public spending, while Minister Gail Teixeira said it offered protection to both sides of the House. At present the Committee is considering the 2019 accounts, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the administration is stalling everything through meeting cancellations so that the PAC will not reach the PPP/C years in a hurry. In other words it will not submit to its accounts being reviewed by the Committee, which is chaired by APNU’s Mr Jermaine Figueira.
The Chairman has said that he is considering a motion for the National Assembly to reverse the decision that changed the quorum, but as he well knows the likelihood is that it will be voted down by the government. If the PPP/C were serious about accountability, then it would start by taking its three ministers off the Committee and by substituting ordinary members. Ministers such as Mr Juan Edghill of Public Works shouldn’t be there in any case, since they could be in a conflict of interest situation when their own ministry’s accounts are under scrutiny. But that apart, they are usually absent because of ‘pressing duties’.
Ms Teixeira’s answer has been that the PAC is not a full-time occupation, and other members from her side of the House are engaged in jobs with demanding schedules and are required periodically to be out of town. And while that applies to ministers in particular, she expressed the view that she and Minister Edghill were two of the most experienced members on the PAC and this allowed them to groom young members in the interim. All that can be said about that is that if these young members have not yet been sufficiently ‘groomed’ after all this time, then they are incapable of grasping the nature of the work to be done and should be substituted with alternative representatives more attuned to financial affairs.
It might be mentioned that Mr Figueira alluded to the fact that when in opposition Ms Teixeira had suggested that ministers not sit on the Committee because of their commitments. Other than her ‘grooming’ comment, she has offered no explanation of why she has changed her mind.
The refusal on the part of the PPP/C to facilitate the investigation of government accounts under its own stewardship as opposed to the period when the other side was in office, is more than a refusal to afford the opposition a potential avenue for criticism; it is to renege on a constitutional duty to the nation. And the nation includes the PPP/C’s own supporters, not just those of APNU+AFC and the independent voters. In other words, the PPP/C is behaving as if it is not accountable to anyone, and is entitled to do as it pleases. Whatever else this is, it is not in correspondence with a standard definition of democratic behaviour.
It was Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo who in a tangential way let slip once again the true thinking of his party, no matter what the rhetoric about accountability and transparency that its members so liberally toss around. It was done in a different context. With reference to executive power-sharing between the parties he said that first it would require the building of trust. He is not wrong in that regard. He went on to say that the PPP/C and the opposition would have to share common values, and where the framework of the state is concerned, he is right about that too, such as in the case of elections or racism, for example. But he included under that rubric what might be regarded as content matters, not framework matters, such as the government’s holistic developmental policies.
Shared governance aside, which is certainly not feasible and most likely not even desirable, the whole point about development in the first instance and the policies needed to bring it about in whatever form in the second, is that there is no unified approach in most countries as to what it should be in every dimension. The whole point about a democratic structure is that these things are open to debate and that the state architecture facilitates such debate, not that the government decides on development and associated policies which everyone else must automatically accept.
But the President too has been in the habit of accusing various commentators many of whom are experts – and not just the opposition – of being opposed to development as evidenced by their criticism. Under normal circumstances it might be thought that the government could not get away with maintaining it has a monopoly on the truth and right action, and use that as an unspoken basis to make sure it does not facilitate PAC meetings. But it is operating on two assumptions.
The first has been clear from some time, although the Vice President gave it a more direct character when he said that this year his party would be targeting opposition areas for the local government elections. The PPP/C believes that citizens who are struggling with the cost of living are more concerned about economic matters than constitutional and related ones like the PAC. The government has been undermining local authorities, and tossing out assistance in various forms like manna from on high, and the party thinks that by appealing directly to opposition constituents it can bypass the politicians who represent them and who are in any case singularly unimpressive.
The second is that the external forces, in particular the US, which might normally be tempted to exert pressure on the democratic front will refrain from doing so on account of their interest in oil here. There was the Chairman of the US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee Jason Smith telling the President Ali and some of his ministers last week that America cared greatly about Guyana’s prosperity and stability. Furthermore he spoke frankly about the US seeking to outcompete China here in relation to this country’s energy sector. The government would have taken note of the possible implications.
Whether it can be too complacent in this regard given the comments of US Ambassador Sarah-Ann Lynch at the end of last year about “inclusion and the potential for corruption” here, in addition to those along similar lines from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, remains to be seen. What can be said is that disaffection on the grounds of a lack of inclusion is not in the US interest, while corruption certainly isn’t. And one of the main guardrails that we have against corruption is Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. That the government is treating it with such contempt – and by extension all Guyanese citizens ‒ is nothing short of a disgrace.
