AS the 29th Sitting of the 12th Parliament convenes today, the House is expected to debate a motion intended to remove opposition member David Patterson as Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Patterson was appointed PAC Chair in December 2020; however, on February 1, 2021, during the sixth meeting of the committee, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, moved a motion calling for Patterson to be replaced by another opposition member of the PAC.
Teixeira had premised her motion on the fact that Patterson was facing public allegations relating to fraud and mismanagement of public funds. He was, therefore, deemed unfit to spearhead the work of the PAC, which is tasked with scrutinising irregularities highlighted in the Auditor General (AG)’s annual reports.
At the time of that motion, the PAC was examining the findings of the 2016 AG Report, which highlighted “paragraph after paragraph” worth of infractions on the part of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, headed by Patterson during his party’s 2015-2020 tenure in government.
In a telephone interview on Sunday, Minister Teixeira reminded that the motion did not seek to remove Patterson as a member of the PAC, but simply called for him to be replaced with another opposition PAC member.

However, the other three opposition PAC members, Ganesh Mahipaul, Jermaine Figueira and Juretha Fernandes, have refused to take Patterson’s place. They have been vehemently insisting that the former minister has earned the full confidence of his Coalition party – the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC).
Patterson has since been criminally charged for allegedly defrauding the Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC) – an agency previously under his purview. The opposition Member of Parliament is also being investigated as part of the gift-giving scandal, in which he allegedly benefited from gifts valuing more than $2 million, from agencies that were under his remit.
Meanwhile, Teixeira has indicated that since February, a series of efforts have been made to stymie the furtherance of the committee’s motion against Patterson. “Fundamentally, he uses every means to prevent the motion from being put to a vote,” the Government Chief Whip noted.
She said that the “mind-boggling” situation persists, even though the committee was advised on multiple occasions by both the Clerk and Speaker of the National Assembly that the motion was valid. “This is a serious of events [sic], in which the chairman has refused to comply,” the minister added.
It was highlighted that on May 3, 2021, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, wrote to Patterson indicating that his actions to delay the motion were a “gross violation of the Standing Orders and tantamount to bullyism.” In the correspondence, the Speaker specifically instructed Patterson to have the motion be put, but this is yet to be done.
Teixeira, who is perhaps the longest serving member of the current Parliament, said that she has never encountered such blatant defiance of the Speaker’s wishes. “He never even acknowledged the Speaker’s letter,” the Chief Whip posited.

As a result of the stalemate at the level of the PAC, Teixeira has moved to table her motion in the National Assembly, which has oversight for all Select Committees, including the PAC.
In her motion, the minister said that “Patterson has consistently and openly violated the Standing Orders and has introduced a level of bullyism unbefitting of a Member of Parliament, and, in doing so, bringing the image of the National Assembly into disrepute.”
Should Monday’s motion succeed, Patterson could possibly be replaced by Lenox Shuman, Leader of the minority opposition, and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly.
In the meantime, the ongoing situation has obstructed 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 is a tactic to prevent the PAC from moving on to examine government spending for the latter part of 2020 and going forward.
It should be noted, however, that the work of the PAC is far behind schedule, with the committee only now wrapping up examination of the country’s questionable 2016 spending. This means that examination of the current government’s spending (post August 2020) will not be immediate.