It might be asked why so many column inches are being expended on the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. There is a reason and it relates to the fact that it is the only committee currently in operation where the government and opposition meet to oversee how our money is spent. This is in a context where, as Monday’s editorial spelt out, Guyana lacks “strong independent institutions to hold the government accountable”, a situation which leaves at risk “the quality of governance and checks and balances that are so vital to an inchoate oil economy.”
When the Constitution was reformed more than twenty years ago, a number of parliamentary committees were established dealing with natural resources, economic services, foreign relations, social services, security, constitutional reform and appointments. The one covering security has not been set up, while the others, if they function at all, do so barely. As Mr Ralph Ramkarran has commented, generally speaking, the government ignores them. That is not so easy to do with the PAC, which does not belong to the most recent category of committees, but dates back to colonial times, in addition to which under the rules it is always chaired by a member of the opposition, not the government. It comprises five government members and four opposition ones in total.
As has been explained before, the function of the PAC is to review the reports of the Auditor General, in the process interrogating the relevant officials about the findings, and then submit its own report with recommendations to the National Assembly. Thereafter the government issues a Treasury Memorandum setting out what action it has taken or will take in response. What it means in practice is that the work of the Auditor General’s office is not done in isolation; there is a mechanism for a follow-up on its findings.
A problem has arisen since May 23rd last year, when the government used its majority in the Assembly to change the quorum of the PAC from three to five – two members from the government side, two from the opposition and the Chairman. Previously it had been three with no party stipulations. Since the change there have been 13 occasions on which no meetings have been held because of lack of a quorum, most recently three in succession. The cancellations came because of the absence of government members, raising the question of whether the administration was attempting to impede the process because it was not prepared to submit its own accounts for examination.
It might be remarked that a quorum of five for a nine-member committee, while presumably not unheard of, is rather large. The government justified it on the grounds of balance, by which they meant political balance, but they could have achieved the same effect as the one they have now by merely requiring that one of the three quorum members should come from government. It would have been far easier for them to find one member on their own side to attend meetings than two, when apparently they are all so busy.
Given the cascade of criticism, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira in addition to her earlier comments has now issued a statement, this time in the form of a letter to this newspaper. She has provided a detailed account of how many PAC meetings were held in the 10th, 11th and 12th Parliaments and the duration of those parliaments. She goes on to say that more meetings were held in the 28 months of the 12th Parliament than the 40 months of life of the 11th. It just might be noted that where the last was concerned, it was a member of the PPP/C who sat in the chair, including MP Irfaan Ali latterly. Whether that had any effect on the frequency or meetings or whether some other factor or factors was responsible, is neither here nor there in the current circumstances; what the government has to answer for is the situation during its present period of office no matter what happened in the past.
Ms Teixeira also mentioned that of the two ministers who sat on the Committee in each Parliament those in the 11th had a higher rate of non-attendance than the present ones in the 12th. This is an interesting allusion, because it was when APNU+AFC was in office that Ms Teixeira argued, with justification, that ministers should not sit on the Committee, presumably owing to their commitments. Now that her party is in government, she has taken quite the reverse position, particularly as it refers to herself and Minister Juan Edghill.
While the Minister asserts that following the passage of the resolution which changed the quorum the PAC met 13 of the 25 times it had done for the period ending March 31st, 2023, she does not take account of the fact that there was a delay of several months in 2021 following the government’s objection to Mr David Patterson chairing the Committee and the opposition’s refusal to substitute anyone else.
What Ms Teixeira does acknowledge is that the workload of the 12th Parliament is much heavier than that of either of its two immediate predecessors. The PAC, she writes, is “dealing with a backlog not of its making but due to circumstances beyond its control.” She goes on to say that the Annual Audited Reports for 2020 and 2021 have been laid on time and are before the Committee.
Recently, Mr Anand Goolsarran has made reference to the fact that although the PAC has finished scrutinizing the accounts for 2017 and 2018, it had not issued its reports on those years, so the government is not in a position to say in the form of a Treasury Memorandum what action it will take. Ms Teixeira, however, explains this deficiency. She says that the report has not been concluded owing to the unavailability of documentation and non-attendance by a number of former Permanent Secretaries and Regional Executive Officers.
This inevitably will always represent a major problem in terms of backlog years, which is why it is so important that the PAC as far as possible always be up to date with its work.
There is clearly a systemic problem when documentation relating to accounts is unavailable, and if the relevant agency cannot produce it, that should be formally investigated. Furthermore, in the case of officials’ non-appearance, there is no reason why in this day and age it cannot be done virtually. If the courts can do it, why not the PAC? And for those based in the country who refuse to appear in some form or another, the government should consider introducing into Parliament a measure which would impose some form of legal sanction for such dereliction.
In the meantime, perhaps Mr Goolsarran could advise as to how the PAC proceeded in the past when faced with dealing with backlogs for which either documentation or the evidence of officials was missing.
Once again Ms Teixeira accuses the opposition on the PAC as trying to move with haste through the years 21017-2020. “Is it to push their ‘dirty linen’ under the mat?” she asks. It can only be repeated in response that the really heavy expenditure followed the PPP/C’s assumption of the reins of government and the advent of the oil economy. In 2019 and 2020 the APNU+AFC were a caretaker government, with far less access to funding for projects and the like. The Minister says that so far the reports have been replete with revelations about violations of the Procurement Act and financial procedures by the past administration, but it still will not mean that the volume of work will be anything like what is the case at present.
Minister Teixeira does not appear to be committed to the idea that the whole exercise up to the point of the Treasury Memorandum is essential for the purposes of accountability. “The fact that all the Audited Annual Reports, Special Audits and Special Performance Audit Reports have been published and laid in the National Assembly as well as posted on the website of the Office of the Auditor General means that any member of the public and media can scrutinize these with or without the PAC. One must ask what is stopping scrutiny of these records and solid investigative journalism?”
This is to miss the point. Accountability will not be achieved just because the public and journalists can read the website of the Auditor General. Ensuring that something is done about his findings requires the PAC to first review his reports, lay their recommendations and conclusions in the National Assembly, and most important have the government say what they have done or will do about the findings. That way the Auditor General’s work will not be an exercise in futility. The Minister undermines her own case by appearing to suggest that the PAC is an irrelevancy in the accountability process. And this despite the fact we need genuine accountability in relation to government spending, which is why what happens in the PAC is so important.
One thing which has to be said about Minister Teixeira is that she prefers defending a government position by the use of argument. It is the democratic way to go. Not all her colleagues, however, are quite so fastidious. Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo favours verbally abusing his critics. Recently he called Mr Goolsarran a “dinosaur”, presumably partly because of what the columnist has been saying about the PAC. It is not that he is wrong about living fossils being found in this land; in fact there are quite a few of them. It is just that Mr Jagdeo is pointing his finger in the wrong direction.
