Home   >   Breaking News   >   Cabinet rejects reconfiguration of Public Accounts Committee

Cabinet rejects reconfiguration of Public Accounts Committee

By on August 21, 2013

The government of Prime Minister Dean Barrow has rejected the positions advanced by the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the National Trade Union Congress of Belize as they relate to the proposed reconfiguration of the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives. 

Chairman of the PAC, the honorable the member for Cayo South Mr. Julius Espat, introduced a motion at the last sitting of the House of Representatives seeking to alter the composition of the Committee. 

That motion “fell to the floor” but the Chamber and the NTUCB picked up the idea and are pushing for a conversion of the PAC to a special joint select committee comprising membership of the social partner senators.

In a statement issued today via the office of the Prime Minister Cabinet said that it “remains convinced, however, that such a proposal is fundamentally inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the Standing Orders of the House.”

Furthermore, states the official statement, “the radical and serial amendments of the Standing Orders that would be required for the transformation of the current PAC into the creature envisaged by the BCCI and NTUCB, would render the proceedings of the new Committee both expensive and impractical.”

The government statement explains that in order for the PAC to work the way the social partners are suggesting “would result in an unwieldy and top heavy Committee and greatly ratchet up the costs associated with Committee hearings. Cabinet cannot, therefore, agree with such a proposal.”

The statement from the office of the Prime Minister goes on to explain that it is the current chairman of the PAC, the Honorable Julius Espat who has been “game playing and grandstanding” that has been  frustrating the committee and preventing it from functioning under the current standing orders. 

But the government says it is determined to push ahead with the work of the PAC, even it it means lighting a fire under the Hon. Julius Espat. 

The government side of the PAC is now insisting that Hon. Espat calls an urgent meeting of the PAC to agree on a schedule for consideration of all outstanding Auditor General reports. 

If Espat fails to adhere to the call for an urgent meeting, the members on the government side, using the Standing Orders as their guide, intend to requisition and convene a meeting of the PAC.

The suggestion from the government side is that the schedule will see the committee examination Auditor General reports prior to 2008 as well as reports post 2008. 

The suggestion is also that meetings should be held twice weekly, with the first day set aside to consider the pre-2008 reports, while day two would consider post 2008 Auditor General reports.

On a final note, the office of the Prime Minister has rejected criticisms that the current UDP administration has not done enough in terms of openness and accountability.

The government statement points out that it was the UDP government that, in 2008, “enshrined into our highest Law the mechanism that obliged the Minister of Finance to lay the Annual Reports of the Auditor General before the House; that provided for the Auditor General to ensure laying in any case where the Minister failed to do so; and that provided for the punishment of the Auditor General for violation of the obligation to produce the Annual Reports.

It was all these amendments that prevented the recurrence of the pre-2008 situation where the PUP Government had failed to lay or otherwise ventilate Auditor General Reports for nine years up to 2007.

These UDP Constitutional Amendments were only part of a much wider set of reforms promulgated by the UDP to ensure accountability.

These included passage of the Financial Transparency Regulations; legislating that the Finance and Stores Orders of the Public Service would have the force of law; amending the Finance and Audit Act to provide for the prosecution and punishment of Ministers and Public Officers that violated the law; and amending the Freedom of Information Act so as to outlaw any provision for secrecy in Government contracts.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CAPTCHA Image

*