APNU motion to extend weekly PAC meetings defeated

…Govt willing to reach consensus on extra meetings

A motion that the parliamentary Opposition A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) had been seeking to increase sittings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to twice per week, has been defeated by the Government side of the committee.
The motion was dealt with in camera, prior to the PAC sitting dealing with matters on the agenda related to the 2016 Audit Report. Afterwards, however, PAC Chairman Jermaine Figueira confirmed to the media that the motion had been passed. He expressed disappointment at this outcome.

“Given the backlog of work that has to be done at the Public Accounts Committee, our side is very much disappointed. Reasons were articulated and so forth, but we believe having two meetings a week would have facilitated us addressing the huge backlog,” Figueira said.
“We would have seen members of the public articulating the position that two weeks meeting is fair. But some views were articulated that the AG Office, the Finance Secretary and those constitutional officers might be bogged down by work.”
He acknowledged that the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) side of the PAC is willing to reach a consensus with the Opposition on extra meetings whenever the need arises – as long as it is not a binding statutory requirement.
This was confirmed by Government Chief Whip and Governance Minister Gail Teixeira, who noted that making two meetings per week statutory not only goes against tradition, but would be inconvenient for the PAC’s workload.

“The issue at stake is, do we need to (make extra meetings statutory)? The answer is no… this Public Accounts Committee has additional work. The appointment of the PPC (Public Procurement Commission) nominees to go to the house, we have to review the Auditor General’s performance records. We have to deal with the Auditor General’s reports itself.”
“Throughout all the Public Accounts Committees and those I’ve been on, we have from time to time met specially, with consensus, because of a particular task to do. What the Opposition has been trying to do is statutorise other meetings. We’re saying there’s no need for that. What has worked from 1966 to now, can continue to work,” Teixeira explained.
She recalled that from former PAC Chairman Carl Greenidge’s time to now President Irfaan Ali when he served as the Committee’s Chairman, there was always a consensus on extending meetings between the two sides.
During those negotiations, she recalled that she herself served as the point person for the Government side during Greenidge’s tenure, while former Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence took on that mantle during Ali’s tenure.
Last month, a decision was made in the PAC to have statutory meetings twice weekly. It was a decision neither the Government side nor constitutional bodies complied with. The standoff, which even saw Teixeira warning that a motion of no confidence could be brought against Figueira in a similar manner to the one that removed former PAC Chairman David Patterson, resulted in the PPP bringing the motion to revert meetings back to the status quo.
Teixeira had previously tabled a motion of no confidence against Patterson at a Committee meeting in February this year but his Opposition colleagues refused to take up his seat, arguing steadfastly for Patterson to be retained. Then at subsequent meetings, Patterson failed to put the issue on the agenda.
This resulted in Teixeira tabling the No-Confidence Motion against Patterson in the National Assembly in June. After a marathon session that featured lengthy and heated debates that ran into the wee hours of June 15, the motion was passed by a 34 to 31 majority in the National Assembly. Figueira would take over the position of Chairman soon after. (G3)