The Government’s side of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is insisting that extra scrutiny must be given to the APNU+AFC’s spending post the passage of the No-Confidence Motion (NCM).
Over the years, the PAC adopted a culture of examining the Auditor General’s report in a two year-bundle. Therefore, the committee is set to examine 2019 and 2020 combined. But the government is objecting. It claims the circumstances warrant more scrutiny than what is offered via the decades-old practice.
In a letter sent to PAC Chairman, Jermaine Figueira, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Gail Teixeira highlighted that despite government’s objection, the committee is gearing to consider 2019 and 2020 together. She said this should not happen.
Teixeira reminded that given the passage of the NCM in December 2018, General and Regional elections ought to have been held three months later. However, while parliament continued to meet, unconstitutionally, Budget 2019 was passed and executed with no oversight or scrutiny.
Teixeira noted, “There was no budget allocations or Appropriation Act approved by the National Assembly for the first nine months of 2020. Therefore, monies were being withdrawn and spent without the authority of Parliament or oversight as required by the statutes.”
The Minister continued, “These years, 2019 and 2020 were aberrations and not in accordance with the Constitution and statutory requirements regarding expenditures from the public purse.”
Teixeira then called on Figueira to “halt” any preparations to commence examinations of the combined audit reports of 2019 and 2020 and to instead make way for them to be examined “separately and sequentially.”
