Patterson should be removed as PAC Chair immediately - Edghill

Patterson should be removed as PAC Chair immediately – Edghill

Jan 21, 2021 News

Public Works Minister, Juan Edghill.

Kaieteur News – In light of former Public Infrastructure Minister, David Patterson’s involvement in the multi-million dollar gift-buying scandal, Public Works Minister, Juan Edghill, has called for Patterson’s removal as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
With the PAC currently scrutinizing government’s spending in 2016, Edghill has urged Patterson to recuse himself from the meetings until investigations in the scandal are concluded.
In a press statement, Patterson insisted that the reports and “revelations” against him are a deliberate attempt to derail his objective of overseeing the government’s expenditure and procurement practices through his chairmanship of the PAC.

Former Public Infrastructure Minister, David Patterson.

Those reports, he said, “would have precisely the opposite effect, as I will be guided by the oversight rules, laws and policies to relentlessly ensure good governance, including proper expenditure according to best practice.”
Minister Edghill during at a press conference yesterday urged him to “do the decent thing and resign.”
Patterson said he assumed that gifts presented to him were fully compliant with the procurement guidelines of the “giving agency”.
But Minister Edghill stated, “this is the kind of gifts that Mr. Patterson accepted. He thought everything was okay, he never solicited. Yet at no time at all, did he say to agency heads ‘why are you bringing me all these expensive gifts?’ Where is the moral compass?”
“When you are caught with your hands in the cookie jar, you throw the agency heads under the bus. Where is the level of decency?” the Public Works Minister asked.
Edghill called for the Integrity Commission to investigate the matter, noting that any gift over US$50 must be declared. If these gifts were not declared then, he stated Patterson is guilty of an offence.
It was during an audit of the state-owned Asphalt Plant at Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara that the gift-buying scandal was discovered after auditors noted a $900,000 bracelet purchase for Rawlston Adams, the General Manager of the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC).
Checks were then made at the other agencies under the Public Infrastructure Ministry’s purview and it was discovered that millions of taxpayers’ dollars was spent on items for then Minister Patterson and his Junior Minister, Annette Ferguson.
The discoveries resulted in a shakeup at the DHBC with Rawlston Adams no longer holding the post as GM. He was said to have tendered his resignation yesterday.
Those actions, Minister Edghill stated, were necessary to ensure public confidence as it relates to public monies being spent.
In addition, he also put on record that a shakeup is imminent at the other agencies that facilitated the gift buying spree.