By Rehana Ahamad

THE government side of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), on Monday, attempted to put forward a motion seeking to remove David Patterson from his post as Chairman of the committee. However, the motion brought by Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, was met with objections from the Opposition side of the PAC, which includes Ganesh Mahipaul, Juretha Fernandes and Jermaine Figueira.
“In this case, I brought a motion calling on, and I did preface what I said by saying that it would be wisest if Mr. Patterson resigned as Chair. Nothing I proposed asked that Mr. Patterson be removed as a member of the PAC,” Teixeira told reporters on the corridors of Parliament buildings. She reminded that Patterson was appointed by the National Assembly’s Committee of Selection, and that the members of PAC lack the powers to have him removed therefrom.
Patterson, the former Minister of Public Infrastructure, is currently being investigated as part of the gift-giving scandal in which, it is alleged, he received in excess of $2 million in gifts from agencies that were under his remit.
As the motion surfaced, the Opposition members vehemently objected, complaining that no notices were given for the motion to be served. After almost an hour of debating the subject, the Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs, was summoned to provide guidance and clarity on the way forward. According to Teixeira, “The Clerk advised the committee that there is no notice required in any committee of the House; a member can bring any motion to the house. If consensus is gained, fine, if not, then it must go to a vote.”

MOTION PROPER

Government PAC member, Juan Edghill, explained that the Clerk, following consultations with his counterparts in various Commonwealth countries, also determined that the motion was proper and that it can be put to question and voted on. The media was not allowed to sit-in on the arguments, but both parties have since confirmed that following the Clerk’s intervention, Patterson recused himself to allow for the voting aspect of the motion.
However, “He did not recuse himself during the debate,” Edghill complained. The Public Works Minister went on to accuse Patterson of “controlling the debate to suppress government members from speaking or even addressing the issue.”
Nonetheless, as Patterson stepped down, Mahipaul, Fernandes and Figueira refused to take his place as Chairperson of the committee. “None of them accepted that offer, so basically, the PAC, at this time, has been left without a presiding officer, and as a result, the business of today, and the business of the PAC going forward, is left to be determined,” Edghill told reporters.
Teixeira indicated that should the Opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) continue resisting the chair, the matter would have to “go back to the Committee of Selection, and the Speaker [of the National Assembly] will have to get involved with having another election of the PAC’s chair.”
She explained that while the motion is one that is somewhat unusual, “There has been a time in this Parliament when there was an attempt to remove a member from a committee from chairing, and it failed because of the vote, but we have this situation where the chair refused to allow the motion to go to the vote.”

CONFIDENCE IN PATTERSON

Meanwhile, the Opposition PAC members are insisting that none of them will take Patterson’s place, since he has earned the full confidence of his Coalition party – the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC).
Ganesh Mahipaul said that the Opposition side of the PAC was shocked and disappointed by Teixeira’s attempt to move the motion. “We found it very strange that a motion would just appear from thin air, and no reason would be given,” Mahipaul noted. His colleague, Jermaine Figueira, has emphasised that it is unfair for the motion to be put based on allegations, since “anybody could make wild allegations on any member”.
The Opposition MPs complained that no arguments were given in support of the motion. Asked about what led to the motion, Ms. Teixeira did not give specifics, but pointed to the allegations that have been “adequately highlighted” in the local press.
Meanwhile, as the saga continues, both sides of the Committee are accusing the other of attempting to obstruct the work of the PAC; the government MPs believe that the stalling of the PAC’s work is an attempt to distract the committee from scrutinising the Auditor General’s 2017, 2018 and 2019 reports.
Similarly, the Opposition members of the PAC expressed suspicion that the motion was a tactic to prevent the PAC from moving on to examine government spendings for the latter part of 2020 and going forward.
Presently, the work of the PAC is far behind schedule, with the committee only now wrapping up examinations of the country’s questionable 2016 spending. “We still have 2017, 2018 and 2019 accounts of audited reports to look at,” Teixeira noted.