At its October 26th meeting, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament adopted a proposal to examine the Auditor General’s reports for 2020 through 2024 simultaneously, a move which it expects to help clear its longstanding backlog and bring parliamentary scrutiny of public spending up to date.
The proposal, presented by Public Works Minister Juan Edghill was adopted despite previous objections from government members to the side-by-side examination approach advocated by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).
Opposition parliamentarian Ganesh Mahipaul said the approach had been advanced by APNU since 2021, but had faced resistance from Mr Edghill and other PPP/C representatives. He welcomed the committee’s decision, describing it as a long-awaited acceptance of a proposal the opposition had repeatedly argued would improve efficiency without compromising accountability.
It is not unusual for the PPP/C to do about-turns when it is convenient to it. This is one such example. The more important consideration here is that when the PAC next meets on November 15 that the process of trying to bring the accounts up to date begins in earnest. Former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran has expressed skepticism that this simultaneous consideration will work noting that it had been unsuccessfully attempted on previous occasions. It will however now be up to the Chairman of the PAC, Vishnu Panday and his staff to make this work and to really test the sincerity of the PPP/C members of the PAC.
One can envisage that Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools can be deployed to sort the queries under each head to be considered and such work could begin in preparation for the hearings on November 15. As an example, it would be interesting to determine how spending in the Office of the President under President Ali has evolved over the five years of oil flows and how it is justified. The relevant information could be inputted into one of the AI chatbots which could then generate the likely interrogatives. This could be shared among the members of the PAC and form the basis for questions to the relevant accounting officers.
One matter of interest to Kiskadee Watch has been the clearly sumptuous expenditure by the Office of the President on lavish receptions at State House and the hosting of delegates of a bewildering number of conferences. Under what Head is this expenditure recorded and can a comparison be easily done of the five years utilizing AI tools? This method should be used throughout the reports to allow the PAC members to home in on the kernel of outstanding questions and anomalies from year to year.
Hopefully the PAC has at its disposal the resources – both human and software – to enable this examination. If not, the Chairman should seek with expedition to ensure that the requisite resources are available otherwise it is possible that gridlock will arise and that would not redound to the public interest.
It may also be wise for the Chairman to draw up a list of the more irksome expenditures over the years and to focus specifically on those rather than allow general considerations. The number one item for examination should be allocations for the troubled oil and gas project. Allocations possibly began as early as the late part of 2020. One likely pitfall is that the Office of the Auditor General has ignored some crucial areas of expenditure or just glancingly addressed them.
When the meeting begins on November 15 the expenditure on the oil and gas project for 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 should be foremost on the minds of PAC members. Contemporaneously they should also ground that examination in what the 2025 report says about expenditure on that particular project. Surely the PPP/C MPs and ministers would not object to that.
Pump station projects have been notorious for their awarding to the incapable, long delays and cost overruns. That area requires careful consideration starting with the infamous Tepui contract for the Belle Vue Pump Station. How was the defective award made in the first place? Why was progress so limited and why wasn’t there a termination of the contract? Other pump stations fell into this category and the accounting officer for the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture should be made to account for this.
Expenditure on the sugar industry should be another area of major examination. There has been sparse consideration of this in the Auditor General’s reports whereas considering the massive outlays of the state there should have been rigorous examination of GuySuCo’s procurement practices and other areas.
One of the other major projects straddled by the years that will now be considered by the PAC is the Port Kaituma wharf. It has an ineffaceable link to the July 18 tragedy that cost the lives of 100 persons and may require Minister Edghill being excluded from these discussions. What did the 2023 and 2024 report say about this project and did the accounting officers and the Office of the Auditor General address the problems including the design failure adequately?
This is just a sliver of what should be addressed in these reports. The simultaneous consideration may not be the ideal circumstance but it is at least an opening to bringing the accounts up to date.
Discussion