Stress is not good for your health!

Oct 29, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – As far as is known, the duties of the Clerk to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) are clerical in nature and involve mainly taking minutes of the proceeding of the Committee. It is therefore hard to imagine how the unprofessional conduct of any member of the PAC can create problems of stress for the Clerk or Clerks.
No matter how unprofessional is the conduct of the members of the PAC that should be of little bother to the Clerks unless the unprofessional conduct is directed to the Clerks and not to the accounting officers who usually appear in front of the PAC. Even if the members of the PAC are hostile towards each other, this can hardly create stress in a professional Clerk.
An explanation is therefore required as to the nature of the unprofessional conduct which is responsible for affecting the mental health of the clerical staff to the Committee. The public should be given that explanation.
A professional Clerk would take the notes of the meeting and try to do so efficiently. So, it matters not who shouts or screams or quarrels, the Clerks should be able to do their work without getting emotionally involved. However, if the unprofessional behaviour is directed towards the Clerks, then this is another matter and all the more reason why an explanation should be offered as to the cause of the Clerks’ stress.
What will cause stress is for Clerks to be required to work two sittings per week. This is highly unreasonable. Given the length of each sitting and the fact that questions and answers are fired and responses to ad nauseam, it is too onerous for there to be two sittings each week. The Clerks simply would not be able to complete writing up all the notes and whatever else is required before the next sitting.
The Chairperson cannot expect for the clerical staff to be able to complete their work if there is more than one sitting per week. This is far too heavy a schedule for the Clerks and may explain the source of their stress.
The PAC is required to examine the accounts presented by the Auditor General’s Report, showing the appropriation of sums granted by the National Assembly to meet public expenditure and such other accounts laid before the Assembly as the Assembly may refer to it. Anyone who has had a look at the Auditor General’s Report would recognise that it is a voluminous document and to have to go through all of those accounts takes a great deal of time and energy.
The Chairperson has to also recognise that the other members of the Committee may have other professional responsibilities, including working as Ministers within the government. They cannot be expected to devote two days per week of their time to interrogate public accounts. Indeed, one sitting per week is also a long stretch. Sooner rather than later, the Committee Members are going to complain about the heavy workload and the burden it is placing on their physical and mental health.
If there is any group of persons who should be complaining about stress, it should be the accounting officers of the various Ministries who are required to appear in front of the PAC. During the tenure of now President Irfaan Ali, the PAC became embroiled in theatrics with, in some instances, accounting officers being asked to leave.
Someone needed to inform the then Chairman, Irfaan Ali, that he was out of order to be doing this. Accounting Officers are not accountable to the legislature; it is their Ministers who are supposed to be accountable. They are there to answer questions and provide information and explanations and regardless of their answers, they should not be subject to be asked to leave the meeting or told to only come back when they have certain information.
The PAC therefore has to understand its role and that of the accounting officers in terms of the separation of powers. It should disabuse itself of the notion that it has jurisdictional authority over the accounting officers in the sense that it could demand explanations. No such authority exists and therefore there is no need for the constant theatrics within the sittings of the PAC.
A compromise is needed to allow for the work of the PAC to continue, to ease the workload on the Clerks and allow for the government Ministers to have enough time for their other official duties. One way to proceed would be for each side to select a few Ministries and Departments which they wish to examine and to prepare a shortlist. The two sides can then cut this shortlist to a manageable level.
In this way, the number of sittings can be made less and shorter. This would ensure that the backlog is eventually cleared and that the stress and workloads on all sides are reduced to manageable levels.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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