The PAC and corruption

The scandals surrounding the award of the Tepui contract in particular, but other contracts too, raise serious questions about corruption under this administration. It likes to breezily dismiss any such allegation, insisting that corruption was only a problem under the previous government, and that evidence has not been adduced for wrongdoing under this one. Given the recent findings of the Public Procurement Commission, however, that is a claim which can no longer be publicly sustained.

It has to be asked, why, if the government is supposedly so concerned about running a clean ship, it seems to avoid measures which would make that possible. Why is it so averse to autonomous watchdog institutions, for example, and almost paranoid about legitimate criticism from any source? Given its general attitude, perhaps one should not be unduly surprised that it has taken such an obstructionist approach to our oldest parliamentary committee doing sentry duty on public spending. This is the Public Accounts Committee which comprises nine MPs, five from the government side and four from the opposition. It is always chaired by an opposition member, who is currently Mr Jermaine Figueira.

There have been reams of commentary including in this newspaper in recent years about the fact that the government members have not been turning up to meetings, and the committee, therefore, is prevented from discharging its functions of reviewing the Auditor General’s reports, and then in turn reporting to Parliament. Under normal circumstances the government is then required to reply in the form of a Treasury Memorandum to the House indicating what measures have been taken to address the PAC’s findings and recommendations.

In April 2022 the government went to Parliament to change the quorum required for a meeting of the PAC to proceed. Previously the quorum had consisted of three members from any side of the House, but after the amendment to the Standing Orders it needed five members, two from each side plus the Chairman. Since then, according to a letter from Mr Figueira, there have been over 40 cancellations of meetings because of non-attendance by the stipulated number of government members, as a consequence of which there is now a five-year backlog in scrutinising the accounts.

PAC opposition member Mr Ganesh Mahipaul accused the government of being responsible for the cancellation of the last scheduled meeting earlier this week, because now that the review of 2019 had been completed, it is aware of the damning revelations contained in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 Auditor General’s reports. And 2020, of course, is the year the present government acceded to office.

When this newspaper tried to contact Minister of Governance Gail Teixeira for a response on the statements made by the Chairman as well as PAC opposition member Mr Mahipaul, we were unsuccessful. But then what can she say? What else can she dream up to explain the absence of government members, so she does not open herself to the obvious accusation that the government is attempting to stall the work of the Committee? Over the last two years we have been through a gamut of puerile excuses, ranging from the fact that the two Ministers on the Committee are very busy, to one that the PAC is not a full-time job, and other members from her side had occupations with demanding schedules requiring periodic out-of-town travel.

This is all nonsense of course. Ministers who are too busy, herself included, should not be on the Committee if they do not have the time to devote to its work, while one of them, namely Minister Juan Edghill should not be there at all because he holds the Public Works portfolio which might well place him in a conflict of interest situation.

As it is the most preposterous indirect explanation for government members not attending meetings had earlier come from this same Minister who enquired as to whether the frequency of PAC meetings was a means of topping up parliamentary allowances for opposition members. The obverse of this, of course, is that the government members are not present at meetings in order to save on transportation expenses and the like. Does he seriously believe that the functioning of our parliamentary committees and by extension our democracy should be held hostage to travel expense claims? That parsimony is more important for such committees than holding officialdom to account, and that above all else democracy should be cheap?

In his comments earlier this week Mr Mahipaul said that the Auditor General’s report on the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 presented evidence of malfeasance and corrupt practices by public officers. He went on to say that several public officials had violated the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act of 2003 owing to their deficient knowledge of the law and lack of expertise in financial management.

He was of the view that if one examined the qualifications of some of the permanent secretaries and regional executive officers they were not suited to their portfolios. They were, in other words, political appointees. It can only be remarked that this has been an ongoing problem under both governments. He also said, however, that owing to their lack of expertise they were also ill-equipped to understand the importance of accountability, which led many to commit errors in addition to corrupt practices. “I know when the 2023 report is out,” the PAC member was quoted as saying, “we will see more damning revelations which the government is trying to hide from us, but there are high levels of incompetence at several of these regional administrations and government agencies.”

That, it might be said, is not a revelation to anyone.

The case of the PAC opens the government to accusations of duplicity. Here is a body charged with playing a key role in monitoring the public accounts and ensuring accountability and transparency. While the Auditor General will identify problems in the various sectors, for any action on these to be guaranteed the PAC will then be required to undertake its review work, and then for the government to respond in a parliamentary setting as to the actions it has taken. Even if a Treasury Memorandum is forthcoming, this becomes less and less meaningful the further back in time to which the memo refers.

Impede the work of the PAC, and one important avenue for addressing corruption is paralysed. If the government wants the public to take the assurances on accountability and transparency which it is forever reciting seriously, then it has to take a deep breath and let the PAC do its work. If it continues to be the cause of the frequent cancellation of meetings, then citizens will draw the inevitable conclusion – and it will not be that the government is doing all it can to eradicate corruption.

The possible levels of corruption in this country have already been made clear by the findings of the Public Procurement Commission, so no one doubts that the Auditor General’s report will also be revelatory. Guyanese are not fools; they can draw inevitable conclusions from incontrovertible evidence. What the government has to demonstrate now is that it will move from depending on propaganda in the matter of corruption, and actually commit to doing something about it. That would include regular attendance at PAC meetings.