–Panday calls for more sittings, says committee met only 26 times in five years
The National Assembly today passed a motion allowing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to resume work left unfinished by the Twelfth Parliament, a debate in which opposition MPs repeatedly shouted “float the boat” at Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill, nearly drowning him out.
Edghill raised his voice to be heard over the shouts, a reference to demands that the government raise the sunken MV Barima. He ended his remarks by saying he was neither a pilot nor an engineer and could not float any boats. The Speaker Manzoor Nadir asked MPs to take down protest displays they had placed in front of them and instructed parliamentary staff to remove the displays.
Relatives of those who died or remain missing have used the chant at weekly protests calling for the wreck to be raised so that missing loved ones can be recovered and evidence preserved. BK International was awarded a $1.034 billion salvage contract on October 6. The published award record gave no deadline for mobilisation or recovery. The state-operated ferry sank on July 18 while travelling from Georgetown to Port Kaituma. Seventy-three bodies were recovered.
PAC Chairman Vishnu Panday moved the motion to authorise the committee of the Thirteenth Parliament to take up matters its predecessor could not conclude before Parliament was dissolved on July 4, 2025. The motion was carried on a voice vote.
Edghill said the government supported the motion and that PAC members had reached agreement on how to tackle the backlog. In September, Edghill had announced at the handover of the Auditor General’s 2025 report that he would bring a proposal to the committee. His aim was for the PAC to be ready to examine the 2026 accounts when that audit report is delivered in 2027. Panday said at the time that he wanted to see the details and would oppose any approach that compromised scrutiny.
The PAC adopted Edghill’s proposal on October 26 to examine the Auditor General’s reports for 2020 through 2024 side by side. Panday and We Invest in Nationhood colleague Nandranie Singh abstained. Panday said he had asked for time to review the proposal before taking a position. The committee also dealt with two outstanding items in the 2019 report after receiving receipts and explanations from the Finance Secretary.
Opposition MP Ganesh Mahipaul told the Assembly that the APNU+AFC had repeatedly pushed for several years of accounts to be examined together during the previous Parliament. He said he had moved a motion at the PAC to examine the 2019, 2020 and 2021 reports together. After the October decision, Mahipaul told Kiskadee Watch that accounting officers would be expected to answer queries across all five years at the relevant sitting and could be called back if their answers were incomplete.
Edghill defended the PPP’s earlier opposition to grouping the 2019 and 2020 accounts with other years. He said the period following the December 2018 no-confidence vote warranted separate scrutiny because the APNU+AFC administration remained in office throughout 2019 and for much of 2020. Mahipaul recalled that the 2019 budget had been approved in 2018 and said expenditure that year took place under that budget.
Edghill said the PPP backed the current proposal because the number of audit queries had fallen substantially since 2021. He told the Assembly the committee had previously dealt with more than 800 queries in a year and was now dealing with about 100 to 110 annually.
Panday said the committee was still five years behind and had held only 26 meetings over the past five years. He urged members to meet more often and consider longer sittings.
“26 meetings in five years is very far from being acceptable,” he said.
Panday said reports could be examined side by side while each year’s accounts still received detailed scrutiny. Former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran, writing in Kiskadee Watch on November 1, said previous attempts to group years had failed to bring the PAC’s work up to date. He proposed that the full committee examine the 2025 accounts while a subcommittee worked through the older reports.
Panday said the next PAC meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 16. The committee is expected to begin examining the 2020 Auditor General’s report.
Discussion