Jermaine Figueira
July 18 ,2022
Public Accounts Committee (PAC) member Gail Teixeira has raised objections to the PAC considering the 2019 and 2020 Auditor General reports simultaneously but Chairman of the Committee, Jermaine Figueira has dismissed the concerns saying that they are “merely political in nature.”
Teixeira in correspondence to Figueira argued that 2019 and 2020 constitute a period when the David Granger-led administration was functioning as a caretaker government and expenditure should be carefully scrutinized. A motion of no confidence had been passed against the Granger administration in December of 2018.
In the letter seen by this newspaper, Teixeira said members of the government had expressed views against the move to look at both reports simultaneously.
“I, on behalf of Government members of the PAC, am calling for you as the chairperson to halt any preparations to commence the examination of the combined annual audit reports of 2019 and 2020 and, further, to allow the examination of annual reports of 2019 and 2020 to be examined separately and sequentially in the PAC,” she said in her letter sent on Thursday.
Teixeira who is the Governance and Parliamentary Affairs Minister pointed out that despite the then APNU+AFC government being a caretaker, the 2019 budget was executed without any oversight.
She went on to state that for 2020 there were no budget allocations nor an appropriation act approved by the National Assembly for nine months.
“Therefore, monies were being withdrawn and spent without the authority of parliament or oversight as required by the statutes,” she contended.
It is on these grounds she made the argument that this period requires much greater scrutiny and time.
“It cannot be combined as has been done previously on some occasions by the PAC,” she said.
Responding to these concerns, Figueira in correspondence sent yesterday said the PAC does not concern itself with the reasons she has provided.
“The Public Accounts Committee Madam Teixeira, deals primarily with the Auditor General’s report findings. Reports which have already been submitted to the committee for the said years to be interrogated with the greatest degree of scrutiny,” he underscored.
He went on to state that her identification of the years 2019 and 2020 as years that require much greater scrutiny and time, “suggest insultingly that the work done by the previous and present members, including yourself, on the years concluded, were not given such a degree of scrutiny and time that you now in a dictatorial fashion demand for these particular years to be treated differently”.
“As Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly of Guyana, it is my hope that the committee’s work is allowed to continue unencumbered, without these political shenanigans and obstructionist machinations designed to stymie the committee’s progress … Our constitutional mandate to ensure transparency and accountability for the people’s resources cannot be held hostage by your party’s political interest,” Figueira said.
He called for the committee members to be cognizant that they are behind in their work and “the Guyanese people expect that we do the work that is required without entanglements of political gamesmanship.”
Figueira in his correspondence also sought to upbraid the member on the use of declaratory words such as “insist”, that the two years 2019 and 2020 “cannot” and “must not” be combined. He said the language does not augur well in a free and democratic society and moreover in forging a “One Guyana narrative.”
Prior to this, the most recent disagreement between members was when Teixeira moved a motion to change the quorum for the PAC. Her motion was carried in the National Assembly in April.