Opposition member of parliament and Public Accounts Committee member, Ghanesh Mahipaul in a press release on Tuesday has singled out PAC member and Government Parliamentarian Gail Teixeira over the recent events at the Committee meeting.
Mahipaul says that the Minister, “ is being deliberately mischievous and misleading concerning the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly and a motion to rescind a resolution of the Committee.”
This statement comes after Opposition Parliamentarians on Monday rejected a motion presented by Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs Gail Teixeira to have the Committee meet only once per week instead of twice.
There has been a backlog for reviewing public spending since 2016, and an agreement was made by the committee to meet twice a week to resolve the backlogging.
The Member of Parliament believes that the Government members of the Committee are in “cahoots with the Auditor General’s Office to stymie the work of PAC.”
However, following the meeting and the statement by the Opposition MP, Ms. Teixeira re-affirms the public’s and the Government’s opinion of the members and claims they are incapable of digressing from “crass bullyism.”
In a statement by the Minister, she noted that to have key officers sit for 2 full days a week in the PAC means that the work of the government will be stymied and reminded Mahipaul along with the Chairman of the committee Jermaine Figueira that it was the APNU/AFC government who, “…fell to a no-confidence motion on December 21, 2018, for 14 months, in violation of the constitution? And who is responsible for attempting repeatedly to hijack the elections and delayed the declaration of the results of those elections for 5 more months? That is where two years was lost in the PAC to address the 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Annual Auditor General’s reports. And who again, but the APNUAFC Members, by their bullying tactics in the new 12th Parliament PAC held up its work from February to May 2021, and, appears to want to do the same once again.”
Teixeira’s motion will be entertained at the next statutory meeting on October 25, 2021. That would be after Figueira has given himself time to be advised by the Clerk of the National Assembly.
He also wants to secure legal advice.
