Govt. has no right to limit Opposition’s prerogative to question and investigate accountability

Apr 13, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

This Government won the 2020 General and Regional Elections fairly and as such they deserve the right to govern Guyana and spend the taxpayers’ money as they see fit, and according to their campaign promises. However, what the Government has no entitlement to do is to reduce or remove the Opposition’s prerogative to question and investigate their accountability via transparency of their financial dealings. The Government’s use of taxpayers’ money for the development in Guyana has to be properly scrutinised and accounted for. Unfortunately, this Government has chosen to try to do everything possible to avoid such scrutiny of its spending.

The time period for the examination of the 2022 Budget Estimates was reduced from five to four days even though the Budget was the largest ever at G$552.9 billion and 44.3 percent larger than the 2021 Budget. This meant that the process was hurried, which can never be a sign of good governance.

Two months later, the Government is about to have a motion to amend Standing Order(s) No. 95(6) included on the Order Paper for Wednesday’s sitting of the National Assembly. This will be making an amendment to the required quorum of the Public Account Committee (PAC), which has the following as one of its responsibilities: examine the audited accounts, as presented in 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.

The PAC is composed of nine parliamentarians, five from the Government and four from the Opposition, with the Chairman coming from the Opposition. The quorum for this Committee is presently three members of any political affiliation.

In a troubling manner, the Government is seeking to increase the quorum from the present three persons to five persons, two from the Government and two from the Opposition plus the Chair, Jermaine Figueira. He states that these proposed changes were never discussed at the level of the PAC, although the mover, Gail Teixeira, is a member. Mr. Figueira also claimed that the motion is being brought directly to the House (The Government has the majority of seats in the Assembly), and not via the Standing Orders Committee, which is the long-established and correct route. This, he said, “is of grave concern”. Figueira further noted that the Speaker of the National Assembly is the Chairman of the Standing Orders Committee, and he has not called a meeting of the committee since the life of the 12th Parliament began in August, 2020.

Minister Teixeira told a PAC meeting, in defence of the motion that it is quite in order and only seeks to ensure that both sides of the House are protected by being present whenever there is a sitting. This gives the impression that Members of Parliament need a bill passed to ensure they turn up to do their work in the various Committees. Why is the Government suddenly interested in protecting the Opposition’s side of the House? They are not, but they want to ensure their Members are present whenever an Account is due to be scrutinised and can control whether it is scrutinised at all.

Increasing the quorum makes it much more difficult for the PAC to function. There have been times when the quorum of three couldn’t be met but now it will be increased to five with very specific requirements of party affiliations needed. These will now be used to prevent any scrutiny of the Government’s spending when the PAC starts to examine the accounts from 2021 onwards.

When a Government wants to make the examination of its expenditures more difficult, it is not a good sign of good governance. A government which is confident of its good spending, should never have issues with its accounts being examined. Accountability and transparency are the hallmarks of good governance, unfortunately they are grossly missing from this present Government.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Yearwood