AG, Greenidge clash over “snail’s pace” of Public Accounts Committee

Apr 24, 2014 News

---

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is still to complete its report on the Auditor General’s report for the years 2010 and 2011. With the 2013 report expected to be released in a matter of months, the “snail’s pace” of the committee is now a matter of concern for Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, who strongly contends that the PAC should have been up-to-date.

The reasons for the “unsatisfactory pace” have caused the Auditor General (AG) and PAC Chairman, Carl Greenidge, to be on opposing sides of the debate.
Christopher Ram, according to the website of Chartered Accountant, (www.chrisram.net), explains that the PAC is responsible for examining the accounts showing the appropriation of the sums granted by the National Assembly to meet public expenditure and such other accounts laid before it.
The Committee also examines the Auditor General’s report.
The AG is the public watchdog for Government accountability. The Audit Office serves the public’s interest by checking that Government organizations spend the money collected from taxpayers carefully and without waste.
The AG in a telephone interview on Tuesday last said, “It is of concern that the reports are taking so long to go through and that shouldn’t be. They are still examining the 2010 and 2011 reports. It is 2014 and when that is finished there is still the 2012 report to go through.”
When Greenidge was contacted yesterday to explain why the PAC is moving at a “snail’s pace” he said, “The PAC is examining the 2010 and 2011 reports together. The only agency that is left to be examined is the Ministry of Finance.
“This will be done in a matter of two to three weeks. Within another two to three weeks the draft report of the PAC will be ready. As it relates to the pace, one must be cognizant that last year we had an unusually large number of meetings.
“The members of the PAC are also members of other Standing Committees and to schedule how often we would like to meet is sometimes quite difficult.”
The Member of Parliament added, “There are of course, other factors which I am not going to go through. Probably it is the intention of some to slow down the work of the PAC.”
“Another issue I would like to mention is that there are a number of cases where the AG is supposed to exercise his power and deal with certain matters or rather complaints.

“There are many cases which come before the PAC and it could have been handled between the AG, the Finance Secretary and the Accountant General. Instead they come before us and these take time to deal with. Even matters that are supposed to be dealt with at the Cabinet level end up spilling over into our plate…
“There are other cases where matters of impropriety should be investigated by his agency or the required ministry with an attachment of the details of the police involvement.
“If they were able to recover missing money and recommendations all would be compiled in one report. These are all things we end up dealing with. It is rare that a ministry would produce such a report…”
Another issue, the PAC Chairman cited was the lack of technical support skills at the Parliamentary level in the PAC meetings.
When Sharma was asked to respond to Greenidge’s claims, he said, “I refuse to accept that from Greenidge. You cannot tell me how to do my work.
“PAC should have been up to date on its examinations and it has nothing to do with me or my reports. I do my job and that is to report my findings and recommendations. In other countries, the committees don’t go through the reports paragraph for paragraph and that is what the PAC does.”
There are cases where a team from a ministry is summoned to deal with one paragraph. That makes no sense. In the case of the Finance Secretary who deals with certain write offs which I think Greenidge may be hinting at, if he does not deal with it through Cabinet and it is occurring again, then what do you want me to do?
“I have to report it again. Government takes my report seriously and I refuse to accept Greenidge’s comments.”
Financial Analyst, Christopher Ram, contends that what the PAC does is to examine only the AG report by inviting public officers to appear before them to defend their ministry, department or region.
This, he says, is a horrible and expensive misunderstanding of what the PAC is required to do.
Ram said that he is of the view that the Committee is required to examine the accounts whether or not the AG has chosen to do so or more often, chosen not to do so.

The accountant said, “The problem with the approach taken by the PAC is that it assumes – wrongly – that we have a real Auditor General, that he acts as a professional auditor would and that the constitution and other laws are observed.
“It also assumes that the spending authority is the public officers when we all know that the financial system has been turned on its head. The Ministers make many of the discretionary spending decisions.
“In my view Ministers too should be brought before the PAC to answer for their mismanagement and non-accountability of public funds.”
The PAC, Ram said, has failed to take steps to prevent the emasculation of the Audit office’s independence by the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act.
He said that it has failed to ensure that the Audit Office complies with its own act.
“It is a circle of non-compliance,” Ram asserted.

---

---