Greenidge seeks House review of audit office appointments

Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Carl Greenidge yesterday proposed to have the National Assembly examine whether regulations have been broken in the appointment of persons without the relevant qualifications at the Audit Office.

Presidential Adviser on Governance and MP Gail Teixeira said the PAC has no power to reverse those appointments—an assertion that Greenidge has challenged.

Greenidge had not voted at the PAC meeting on June 25 when the appointments were forced through, after PPP members on the committee took advantage of the absence of AFC member Trevor Williams. Greenidge had accepted the advice of the Clerk of the National Assembly, which was that according to the Standing Orders, he did not have a vote.

But Greenidge said yesterday that the problem with the revision of the Standing Orders was that it was not done in a comprehensively enough manner, resulting in inconsistencies with regard to the power of the PAC Chairman to vote. “Some Standing Orders say he could vote, some say he couldn’t,” said Greenidge.

Speaking to this newspaper after yesterday’s PAC meeting, Greenidge said, “The meeting was apprised of the route by which… the decision [was made] concerning the eligibility of the chairman to vote. We recognised that it is a very controversial matter and that it was causing problems for persons in society,” he said.

He said that he as chairman made two recommendations which the meeting accepted. The first recommendation is for the matter of whether the chairman could vote to be decided upon at the level of the National Assembly.

The second is for there to be an examination of the extent to what regulations might have been broken by the appointment of persons without the requisite qualifications to the Audit Office. Greenidge also said, “We did not only address the matter of the conflict of interest with regard to [Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh and his wife Gitanjali Singh] but also the [Audit Office] and its affiliation with bodies that deal with accounting and auditing.”

Meantime, Teixeira, speaking to members of the media outside Parliament yesterday said the PAC has no power to rescind the appointments to the Audit Office. She said that once the appointments are made it is a matter for the courts or the employer or employee.

However, Greenidge said that while the PAC has not yet reached a point where it is looking at rescinding appointments, if the PAC could appoint then it could also alter its decision. “Any House or its committee can revisit decisions. I don’t know if there is a special rule for the PAC which says it cannot revisit a decision,” he said.

The AFC had called for a review of the acting Auditor General’s decision to make the appointments to the Audit Office, since the party is dissatisfied with the actions of the government members in forcing the vote.

That party said that a matter as important as this, with constitutional and ethical implications ought not to have been the subject of a PAC vote “as engineered by the PPP representative” in the absence of the full committee of the PAC.

The AFC called it a sleight of hand, since the AFC member at a previous meeting had asked for more time so that the PAC could be better advised.

In condemnation of the ruling PPP/C’s action, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) called for a suspension of the tripartite talks.

It also called for the parliamentary opposition parties to engage in extra parliamentary action to pressure government into reversing the appointments.

The WPA called the action of the ruling party deplorable and injurious to efforts at consensus. As a result, the WPA said, the opposition should in the short term adopt an approach of non-cooperation with the government until it demonstrates a commitment to respect the will of the people as reflected in the National Assembly.

Greenidge has written to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Guyana (ICAG), seeking its opinion on the recent appointment the wife of the Minister of Finance to the position of Audit Director. Robert McRae, a partner in Ram and McRae Chartered Accountants has also lodged two complaints with the ICAG, regarding the conflict of interest and conflict of duties that appointment creates and expounding on the laws that have been breached.