THE claim that Government took advantage of the absence of one Opposition Member of Parliament to push only Mrs. Geetanjali Singh’s appointment in the Auditor-General’s (AG’s) Office is just a sign that they are bad losers, Government Chief Whip Gail Teixeira said. While the Opposition parties have reconstructed the new Parliament where they have the majority, “it is not my role to make sure that their people are there. My job is to make sure that my people are there, and there are times when they aren’t.”
Teixeira explained that when the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) met on June 18, the Parliamentary Opposition had the majority and, when she moved the Motion to appoint persons to the AG’s office, the Opposition asked for time to return. “They came back, we had four people there, and they had three. Obviously if they had all four people, there would have been a tie, and the chairman would have voted. It’s not my fault they had three people there. It’s absolutely in order; there is nothing conspiratorial about it. This is politics,” she stated.
“The greatest challenge of the Parliament is to protect our country,” she said and continued that all the changes made can be reversed.
She was referring to the fact that from 1992 when the People’s Progressive Party/Civic took office, Guyana was restored to democracy, “We have made tremendous strides in constitutional changes and reform. It is very disturbing in this period with the way the Opposition is behaving and the threat against Guyana,” she observed.
They combined to outvote the Government all the time, and, what they have done is reckless in regard to the Committees and against the Standing Orders, by reversing the balance of the Committees in favour of the combined parliamentary Opposition, she said.
In relation to the issue of Mrs. Singh’s position in the Auditor General’s office, Teixeira pointed out that in 2010 the AG wanted to hire senior staffers and approached the PAC.
“He wanted to appoint 13 people, audit directors, audit supervisors and audit managers,” she explained. Before December 2010, the PAC made their questions known, it rolled on to 2011 and then to the new dispensation, where the PAC now has the majority Opposition members. “Traditionally the PAC is always chaired by the Opposition. Government has five seats, the Opposition has five seats and it is chaired by the Opposition,” she said, adding, “in the current Parliament the Opposition has five, the Government has four. We would never win if they go to a vote,” she surmised.
“At the June 18 meeting, when the matter was discussed, there were two members of the Government, three members of the Opposition; Mr. Carl Greenidge was Chairman. The Auditor General issue was on the agenda and the argument was the qualifications of the persons to be appointed.  The Auditor General said he advertised the position, and all the persons in one way or another fulfilled the requirements. At no point in time was Mrs. Singh’s name spoken. On the list of people she was the most qualified.”
Teixeira suggested that the persons be appointed and that the AG’s Office not be held back from its work and noted that it was Opposition MP Volda Lawrence who suggested Mrs. Singh’s appointment, since she was the most qualified person, with a Masters Degree.
“They argued about people being qualified. The Auditor-General had been waiting almost three years. We insisted on the motion being put,” the Government MP said.
Mrs. Singh had been working at the AG’s office for 18 years before she married the Finance Minister, whom she met before he became a Minister. “She wasn’t implanted there,” Teixeira observed.
The issue is about women’s rights, the right to work and the right for women to work, declared Teixeira. “Women in parliament are attacking a woman on her right to work in a particular position for which she is eminently qualified. This is conflict of interest. Because of her presence in the Auditor-General’s office, because she is the Minister’s wife, she will then use her influence. It is accusing her of an act of impropriety which she has not committed,” Teixeira said.
“They are saying that because she is Audit Director, she is going to be involved in auditing NICIL and NICIL is chaired by the Minister who is her husband. Audit Directors do not audit; that is done by auditors at other levels. The Auditor General has made it clear that she (Mrs. Singh) is only involved in monitoring the audits that are outsourced to private companies. So she is not involved with going into NICIL, in checking the books and so on. This is how they are portraying it to the public. So it is very mischievous, and in fact sinister to say that this person will be complicit in any audit that comes out of NICIL. This is the height of mischievousness.”
Teixeira alluded to similar situations in Europe, where such persons are not taken off the job, but just placed in another situation where conflict of interest does not come into play.
“In the entire 9th Parliament the issue of her position in the Auditor-General’s office was not raised. Now they are directly targeting her and she has no voice; it is up to us to speak out for her,” Teixeira said.
Chaired first by the late Winston Murray then Volda Lawrence, the PAC meetings never assumed or considered any conflict of interest.
Auditor General (ag) Deodat Sharma has also put in place an ‘anti-conflict of interest’ arrangement by arranging for Mrs. Singh to sign an agreement which outlines that she will have no involvement in any of the audits where there is a direct involvement of her husband.
She has reportedly adhered to this arrangement with the audit office over the years.
Meanwhile, Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon, yesterday stated that the decisions made at the more recent sitting of the PAC in the 10th Parliament reflected the views and the intent of the PAC.
However, he noted that the interest of the issue of the appointments of specific members in the Audit Office of Guyana, surrounded interpretations and the applications of the principle of conflict of interest in such appointments.
He stated that contrary to those views that have been erroneously cultivated in the media, the public and among interested parties, “the specific appointment on which this notion of conflict of interest was addressed, was in essence to confirm an appointment for which the Minister’s wife was acting for an extraordinary length of time. It was definitely not a new appointment.”
Dr. Luncheon added that it was without any resort to sensationalism in the earlier parliaments, particularly in the 9th Parliament. He reiterated that an acting appointment and its confirmation that had been made, was being exercised since the time of the 9th Parliament, “this is a professional who had been employed for close to two decades of service in the Audit Office of Guyana.”
The HPS pointed to the effects of constitutional and statutory changes made by the PPP/C administration with regard to the autonomy of the Audit Office and the role of the PAC evolving in governance issues. He noted that the Audit Office moved from what it was in the 1980s and in the years of the PNC-controlled administration, adding that, “it is noteworthy that the Audit Office does not fall under nor report to the Ministry of Finance. The amended Audit Act and the regulations promulgated under the Audit Act highlighted the focus of the PAC and Parliament in the governance structure of the PAC.”
On the point that the Chairman of the PAC discovered that he could have been misadvised, “and indeed could have been advised to act or not to act is a twist.…pandering by sectors and public commentators about the conflict of interest issue misrepresents the entire matter and it is intended as far as Cabinet is concerned, to foist attention on some nefarious plots and intentions by those efforts,” Dr. Luncheon said.
He added, “In the entire life of the 9th Parliament; same position, same officer, the same National Assembly – its configuration may now reflect the one-seat majority and, I am insisting that those considerations have suddenly been created and are being used to address this issue.”
Dr. Luncheon said the issue did not arise about the notion that such a conflict existed under the same chairmanship of the PAC, which reposes in the Opposition, subsequent to the significant amendments to the Audit Office Act, which removed its focus on a Government entity and rendered it autonomous to and under  Parliament.