– but APNU maintains ‘no business as usual’ with Edghill
Even as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Vishnu Panday is pushing to have meetings continue during the period that parliament usually goes into recess each year – August 10 to October 10 – the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) says its position regarding Public Works Minister Juan Edghill has not changed.
This means that Panday’s request for the committee meetings to be held during this period will not be successful as the absence of APNU parliamentarians will leave the meeting without the quorum needed for it to proceed.
Last Monday, APNU parliamentarians Ganesh Mahipaul and Juretha Fernandes left the meeting when Edghill showed up, arguing that he should recuse himself. But Panday ruled that the laws governing the House did not permit him to expel the sitting minister. That meeting had to be aborted despite the fact it was going to be the first time that the public accounts for the years 2019 and 2020 were going to be considered.
Speaking with Kiskadee Watch yesterday, Panday said due to the significant backlog of work plaguing the PAC, he is in the process of negotiating with committee members to work through the recess period “to push the work.”
“But that has to be by a consensus, so I am awaiting answers from them,” he shared, adding, “I would hope that good sense will prevail and that they (APNU members) would have taken my ruling; treat that one as a walkout and thereafter we get on with our work.”
But Mahipaul said that he is somewhat “disturbed” at the position taken by WIN at the PAC meeting, and that APNU will stick to its “principled position” based on the fact that if Edghill was not accepted in the House to contribute to financial papers, bills, motions, and other forms of parliamentary procedures at the level of the National Assembly, then the party cannot have a different position at committee meetings.
“You can’t want to treat committee meetings as though it’s business as usual, but when the National Assembly is sitting, you’re saying ‘Edghill must go.’ You have to pick a struggle.
That is why I am a bit disturbed by WIN’s posture at the PAC meeting, because the very individual who is the chairman of the PAC meeting and Ms. Nandrani Singh, who is a member of the PSC; they were up in arms one week ago when we sat at the National Assembly,” Mahipaul recalled in an invited comment to Kiskadee Watch yesterday.
“They were in the well chanting ‘Edghill must go.’ They were there demonstrating. They were there walking, disturbing, holding to a position that the joint opposition agreed to. I am not aware that that position has changed,” Mahipaul continued.
He stressed that Edghill should be held responsible for the failures that happened in his ministry, which cost the country over 100 lives, and that the minister needs to take responsibility for it. “For now, I can comfortably tell you that APNU’s position has not changed from what it was one week ago… My personal position is that we should maintain that position. But I am there on the strength of a party, and I’ll be guided by the party. At least right now, the party has not changed its position.”
Meanwhile, last Monday, Panday appealed to Mahipaul and Fernandes to proceed with the work of the PAC, noting that the body is already six years behind in scrutinising the Auditor General’s reports. However, this did not stop the APNU MPs from walking out.
Panday said he acknowledged the concerns raised about Edghill’s continued participation in the PAC following the MV Barima tragedy, but urged opposition members not to allow the issue to derail the committee’s work.
“Given that we are six years behind, and historically, one year of the Auditor General’s report takes the committee one year to go through; in other words, we couldn’t finish the backlog until 2032. Is that proper business? Is that where we’re looking after the interest of our people? So, I actually made a plea with them that given the volume of work, given the backlog of work, let’s move on,” he shared.
Panday said that although he personally sympathised with the concerns, he was required to rule according to the Standing Orders and the Constitution. He said only Edghill could voluntarily recuse himself and that, as chairman, he had no legal authority to order the minister to leave the meeting.
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