The Public Accounts Committee UDP-style met again today in Belmopan. We say UDP style because the opposition Chairman Julius Espat and member Rodwell Ferguson have refused to join their agenda. But right now the opposition is the "odd-man-out" because the Chamber, the Churches and labour representatives have been attending the meetings. Heck, the UDP even enlisted a chartered accountant to monitor the proceedings.
Day one focused on the 2003 – 2004 audit of the Musa Administration's second term. Day two fast forwarded to year one of the Barrow administration, 2008 – 2009.
That's a report the auditor general refused to sign off on because of missing data and numbers that did not reconcile.
Today's exchanges with the former auditor General focussed on a system where reporting and record keeping was apparently a very low priority:
After the morning session – which got through all of two pages of the 2008 report, we got to speak to the pro-tem Chairman John Saldivar about a system that's broken – which no one has been monitoring. We also got to ask him about the political gamesmanship that's at play:
Saldivar says the proceedings will probably take a very long time. The meet again on Monday when it's back to the Musa years.
