Latest update June 13th, 2026 12:39 AM
APNU pushes for PAC work to accelerate
…committee set to meet Monday to elect chairman
(Kaieteur News) – A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is pushing for the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to accelerate its work by examining the Auditor General’s (AG) Reports for 2020-2024.
On Friday, Member of Parliament (MP) for the party, Ganesh Mahipaul reminded that at the close of the last PAC, the AG’s 2019 report was under examination but was not completed.
“The first meeting of the PAC is scheduled for Monday at 10:30 and that is specifically to elect a chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee. After that, we will move into 2020 and going forward, I am hoping and I’m sure Juretha and the others who are supportive of us reaching to current report of the Auditor General, that we can able to merge at least 2021, 2022 and 2023 reports together and tackle them,” he said.
APNU Member of Parliament, Ganesh Mahipaul
Mahipaul told reporters at his party’s weekly press conference, merging the reports will allow the committee to fully minimise the time used to examine the reports and allow for the PAC to examine recent reports, which would be more beneficial to the country.
“In the year 2026, hopefully we’re going to begin examining 2020. That is 6 years after. There are certain statutes of limitation… there’s certain problems that we will not be able to hold accounting officers responsible for, because of the statute of limitation in law and I’m no lawyer but it was well established that certain matters become statute bar or the statute of limitation kicks in,” he further explained.
Further, Mahipaul noted that accounting officers may claim memory loss given that the 2020 report is being examined by the committee in 2026, six years later. That aside, some of the accounting officers may have taken up new posts.
As a result, the parliamentarian is not optimistic about the level of clarity the PAC would get from accounting officers for the period 2020 to 2021.
Asked whether the examination of merged reports can result in the PAC missing important details, APNU Member of Parliament Juretha Fernandes explained that the method employed allows for a thorough examination albeit merged.
“For example, if we merge 2020, 2021 and 2022 reports, three reports merged together. What we will do is that we will have the agency, the financial officers from the agency come before the PAC as they would do for any other single report. But when they come, they will be answering questions for the three reports instead of just coming to answer for one. What it does, it makes it a whole lot more efficient because what you would find in the Auditor General’s report a lot of times you would have follow-ups and previous year matters repeating itself coming forward,” Fernandes said.
APNU Member of Parliament, Juretha Fernandes
That aside, Fernandes noted that over the years the PAC has encountered the challenge of getting accounting officers to appear before the committee, despite requests.
“The Ministry of Health was a big example of that, and they always send in an excuse why they can’t make it. They always have some other thing to do. So, when we do have those reports merged together there is one showing for those accounting officers to come to the PAC to answer for all three years. What we do is when the accounting officers are sitting there to take questions from the Public Accounts Committee, the paragraphs are put and every single member of the PAC is given the opportunity to ask whatever question they want to ask on whichever paragraph they’re asking,” she added.
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