— next meeting set for Monday
— Chairman, Teixeira to meet with Speaker before meeting

A NEW Parliamentary Clerk has been identified to work along with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is slated to be reconvened on Monday, according to Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Isaacs said that the PAC Chairman, Jermaine Figueira, has already met with the new Parliamentary Clerk to discuss matters pertinent to the next meeting. “I think they have prepared an agenda,” Isaacs related.

The PAC was unable to meet last week after all other Clerks of Committees expressed their unwillingness to work with the PAC, due to the unprofessional conduct of some members.

Isaacs, in a letter to the PAC Chair, indicated the grievances of the parliamentary staff, who have complained that the PAC is not conducive to a healthy work environment. As a matter of fact, Isaacs said that the situation escalated to the extent where the former PAC Clerk had to seek medical attention due to the high stress levels that come from working with the PAC.

Although Monday’s agenda has been set, it is unclear whether it includes the hearing of a motion put forward by Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, which attempted to argue that the frequency of PAC meetings should remain at one weekly, as opposed to the twice weekly meetings that are being advocated for by opposition members of the PAC.

Minister Teixeira said that the Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, has summoned herself and Chairman Figueira to a meeting on Friday morning; she is hopeful that at the meeting, critical issues relating to the derailing of her motion will be addressed and dealt with. “The major issue is, when we [the PAC] do meet, is the motion that I brought, is it going to be put? That’s the issue that I hope will come up on Friday,” the Government Chief Whip noted.

The PAC last met on October 18, and although the committee conducted a full days’ work of scrutinising financial discrepancies outlined in the 2016 Auditor General’s Report, it ended in an uproar.

Earlier that day, Teixeira’s motion was ‘shot down’ by the Opposition-led PAC, with Chairman Figueira asking for additional time to review the submission, “although he was told that the Clerk of the National Assembly had been consulted to make sure that the motion was in order and in accordance with the Standing Orders.”

Figueira then committed to having the motion entertained during the next committee meeting, which was slated for the following Monday, October 25. However, when the committee wrapped up its October 18th meeting, Figueira reneged. He reportedly ordered that the live stream be cut and that members of the media who were present in the Parliament Chambers leave.

Figueira then proceeded to adjourn the meeting, not until the Monday as promised, but until Friday, October 22, “despite being reminded of his previous commitment”.
On that day, and the Monday that followed, the meetings were stalled due to the parliamentary staff’s refusal to work with the PAC.

UNTRUSTWORTHINESS
In a previous interview, minister Teixeira expressed the belief that Figueira’s actions serve as yet another example of the “untrustworthiness” of the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) opposition, “and their Members of Parliament”.

Teixeira’s motion sought to rescind an earlier one moved by APNU+AFC’s Ganesh Mahipaul, who argued that the PAC should be meeting twice weekly in order to clear the backlog of financial irregularities that have to be scrutinised.

However, Teixeira and her colleagues have argued that, with their substantive portfolios as ministers of government, they may not always be available to meet as frequently.

Teixeira and her team, which included Public Works Minister Juan Edghill, Dharamkumar Seeraj, and Attorney-at-Law Sanjeev Datadin, also gave consideration to the public servants who are also required to attend the meetings. These persons included officers of the Office of the Auditor-General and the Ministry of Finance, among others.
The Parliamentary Affairs Minister had indicated that the decision to increase the number of meetings per week was taken “without any discussion” or “any attempt to reach consensus”.

It is important to note that the government’s participation in clearing the current backlog is especially important, since most of the irregularities being dealt with now date back to 2016, when the APNU+AFC was in government.
Further, Teixeira believes that Figueira’s actions are reminiscent of that of his predecessor, David Patterson, who was recently removed from the helm of the PAC, having been accused of openly defying several Standing Orders.

Patterson, who assumed the PAC leadership position in December 2020, was also chided for “shutting down” issues raised by Teixeira and other government representatives of the PAC pertaining to financial irregularities under the APNU+AFC, particularly during the party’s first year in office.

Patterson’s “defiance” during February to May 2021 led to a stalemate in the PAC. This forced Minister Teixeira to move a motion in the National Assembly, calling for Patterson to be removed from the chairmanship of the committee.

As the motion was being debated during an all-night sitting of the National Assembly in June, Minister Teixeira had described Patterson as being unfit to oversee the work of the PAC, given the fact that he was facing criminal charges relating to fraud and misuse of government’s monies.
When Figueira adjourned the meeting and walked out, Teixeira described it as being “Déjà vue”.

She said then that while she and her colleagues in government were upset about the direction of Figueira’s chairmanship of the PAC, they were not surprised. “This is the typical duplicitous behaviour of the APNU+AFC and their Members of Parliament; nothing new, except that once again, we have a demonstration of the lack of integrity and the lack of trust,” Teixeira argued.

More significantly, Teixeira threatened that if Figueira continues to show disregard for the rules that govern the committee, then the government members will have “no qualms whatsoever” about going back to the National Assembly to have yet another APNU+AFC member removed from the chairmanship of the PAC.