In other news from the Government, Cabinet met on Monday in Belize City and a briefing says they are going to re-constitute the public accounts committee and surrender the majority. At Friday's house meeting, government will introduce a Motion to Amend the Standing Orders for the House of Representatives. The motion will reconstitute the Public Accounts Committee to increase its membership from six to nine by adding three social partner senators to the committee.
This is significant because it will put the majority for this all - important, but completely dysfunctional committee in the hands of the opposition and the social partners.
As it currently stands, this committee, which is set up to examine government accounts, is chaired by the opposition but has majority membership from the government side. For the past decades this has meant that while the chairman can call a meeting, he or she often struggles to get anything done - because he is frustrated by the government members who form the majority.
For years under the Barrow Administration, the social partners had been pushing for inclusion, but Prime Minister Barrow refused to concede what is known as the majoritarian principle, that, in a democracy, the majority should rule. The PUP have now conceded this in the Public Accounts Committee - so it will be interesting to see how it goes.
The committee is chaired by opposition member Tracey Taegar Panton.
