A shortage of Public Accounts Committee members prompted the postponement of Thursday’s planned hearing which was set to look into the auditor general’s report on government’s financial reporting.
PAC chairman and Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart, through a statement Thursday, said the committee was not able to reach the required number of members to meet.
“As such, the Committee was not able to proceed with the hearing,” the statement said.
Four members of the committee need to be present in order hold a hearing, and only McTaggart, Heather Bodden and Barbara Conolly attended the session.
PAC members Joey Hew and McKeeva Bush were absent.
McTaggart confirmed Hew is currently off island. He became a PAC member on 25 Nov. 2022, replacing Katherine Ebanks-Wilks.
Bush confirmed to the Compass that he was attending to constituency matters. The West Bay West MP was appointed to the PAC in April 2023.
A PAC seat still remains vacant on the committee as no one has been appointed to replace MP Isaac Rankine, who resigned on 13 Oct. 2023 to take up the post of Minister for Border Control and Labour, a portfolio now held by Dwayne Seymour. Rankine has since been appointed Minister of Sports.
The PAC statement said a draft government motion has been presented to Parliament to address the vacant seat on the the committee, “which will significantly improve the Committee’s ability to meet amidst many busy and conflicting schedules”.
McTaggart said he looks forward to holding the hearing in March and “to moving forward with other outstanding items and reports from the Auditor General”.
This was the second postponement for the committee in recent weeks.
The committee was initially scheduled to meet on 11 Jan., but that hearing was rescheduled to Thursday. No reason was provided at that time for the change in date.
The PAC members were going to hold a public hearing to further investigate elements of the auditor general’s report on the state of the government’s financial reporting.
That report found irregularities in spending, pointing out that nine public bodies broke the law in 2022 when they spent more than $10 million in government funds without requesting the required approval first.
Kenneth Jefferson, financial secretary and chief officer of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, had been listed as a witness at Thursday’s hearing.
Accountant General Matthew Tibbetts and Taraq Bashir, director of the Central Procurement Office, were also on the list of witnesses.
A previous PAC statement had said Deputy Governor Franz Manderson was also expected to be a witness.
Related Videos
We have a dedicated Auditor General conducting a review of Government financial reporting and finding for the umpteenth time, serious irregularities. At long last we can expect action from the PAC, and what happens, they have failed to meet on the last two occasions!. Accountability is non existent in the Civil Service, and it seems it always will be if the watchdog is not performing it’s duties.