Dear Editor,
GHK Lall’s allegation that the PPP Government is “hell bent on thwarting” the work of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is ludicrously false and a malicious misrepresentation of the truth. Any high school student with time and access to the online archive of this newspaper can fact check Mr. Lall’s letter to the editor dated Feb. 23, 2023. Mr. Lall’s strategy seems to be to fling as much dirt as possible at the Presidency of Irfaan Ali and hope some of it sticks. The desired outcome is to confuse his readers.
During the administration of President Bharrat Jagdeo, PAC’s mandate was beefed up and its duty, as outlined in the Constitution of Guyana, was to ensure that “public monies are spent for the purpose authorized by Parliament and that extravagance and waste are minimised and that sound financial practices are encouraged in estimating, contracting and administration, in general.” Following the elections of 2015, the committee elected Mr. Irfaan Ali as its chair. APNU-AFC held five seats and the PPP/C four. Now the roles have been reversed. APNU-AFC has four including the chairmanship of the committee and the PPP has five.
Mr. Lall shockingly misdeployed military terminologies such as “AWOL” and “MIA” to describe the reluctance of PPP-PAC members to be kowtowed into scheduling more than one meeting a week. Even so, the government has shown a willingness to increase the number of statutory meetings when deemed necessary. This should be an easy fact check for Mr. Lall. Laziness is not an excuse. Mr. Lall gives his readers the impression that PAC meetings are akin to a bunch of comrades hanging out at a cafe. However, PAC meetings require the participation of the Auditor General as well as the Accountant General and the Legislative Bodies Act allows for the summoning of witnesses to give evidence and provide documents to the committee. So serious is the work of PAC, that anyone who is summoned and refuses or neglects to attend can be arrested and detained for a period not exceeding one week.
Effectively running the affairs of a country takes a lot more than conveying meetings willy nilly. So aggressive has been APNU-AFC PAC members in scheduling more meetings that Gail Teixeira recently described their antics as “crass bullyism.” Their antics is an attempt to fool the people of Guyana into believing that the government of the day is hiding something nefarious. If Mr. Lall has any real evidence the government is clandestinely fixing the books to benefit its friends, put up or shut up.
APNU-AFC hopes the people of Guyana will quickly forget the sheer degree of corruption that marked its administration in 2016-2018 and that were exposed by reports of the Auditor General. Two former APNU-AFC ministers were charged for breach of procurement laws including the sale of national assets to the tune of billions of dollars.
Spring back to 2015 when the PPP gracefully slid over to make room for APNU-AFC. In its first session of the Eleventh Parliament (2015-2016), under the chairmanship of then MP Ali, PAC held a total of 12 meetings. This is remarkable given the fact that the fiscal years it was tasked to review (2012-14) were those of PPP’s President Donald Ramotar (2011-2015). If ever there was a time when the PPP might have wanted to engage in a cover-up as Mr. Lall suggests they are now doing, this would have been a time to deploy such a strategy.
Instead, PAC completed a thorough investigation and Ali tabled its report in 2017. It contained many critical items, not least the mysterious disappearance of 16 water tanks from the premises of Guyana Elections Commission. Who could have absconded with the tanks, PAC asked? The police report could find no one culpable. Minister Ali and members of PAC recommended that the security firm tasked with guarding the water tanks reimburse the budget agency for the stolen tanks.
What of the billions of dollars that APNU-AFC absconded with during its tenure? Which security firm could be held accountable when former President David Granger was tasked with guarding the till?
Sincerely,
Nazim Baksh
