Another issue of much public interest is the Public Accounts Committee; Government and The Opposition disagree sharply about the way forward for this important House committee. The opposition wants to re-constitute the membership completely; Government wants it to say as is; The Opposition wants to review Auditor General Reports from 2012 going forward; the Government wants them to go back to 2008.
The Chamber of Commerce, which had initially jumped on the Opposition plan – has backed off, and simply urged both sides to get along. But the National Trade Union Congress of Belize is sticking with the Opposition model, and has criticized the Prime Minister for not having the will to push forward with real reform. Today, he shot back at the NTUCB, and claimed his Party Whip Michael Finnegan as collateral damage in the process:
Jules Vasquez
"You had mentioned that it would be too costly or too complex to change it."
Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister of Belize
"I don't care what they buy - let me make it clear again, I am not going to offend the principle of 'majority rules', I am not going to offend the standing orders of the House. Note that the Chamber of Commerce quite sensibly said 'in effect, we're not really interested in any restructuring of the Public Accounts Committee - all we want is to see the work done'. I've already put forward a proposal that can get the work done, so with every respect to the NTUCB and not to quarrel with them - we will press on and there will be no restructuring of the Public Accounts Committee so as to make it unruly and to violate not just the standing orders but the whole principle of democracy."
Reporter
"The precedent had been set, where rules can be changed - the Constitutional Ammendments for Nationalization so they are saying that this can be done."
Hon. Dean Barrow
"Let me try to be cool and constrained. I was really disappointed - Constitutional Ammendments are a whole different story. I don't know how NTUCB could 'mix up the ham with the hammer' - we're talking about standing orders of the House and we're saying that they're absolutely no need to change the standing orders because the committee as it is currently constituted can work and will work."
Reporter
"What will you hope will happen Wednesday afternoon?"
Hon. Dean Barrow
"I would hope that the current chair of the Public Accounts Committee will recognize that the game is over; that there is a need to adapt the agenda that our side, which is what the majority is proposing - adapt the schedule that we are proposing so that we can look at both sets of reports, simultaneously. If they are not prepared to go with that then we have the votes to force that schedule and that agenda through and that's exactly what we will do and we will proceed thereafter to do the work."
Reporter
"Mr. Finnegan had said that virtually all the House committees are dysfunctional - that sometimes meetings only last a few minutes - can you speak to that?"
Hon. Dean Barrow
"Sometimes meetings last a few minutes, sometimes they last two and a half hours like the meeting of the Finance and Economic Development Committee - which was considering the various bills having to do with offshore sector, last Monday. I think Mr. Finnegan spoke in a way that did not in fact address the full picture."
On Thursday, Finnegan told 7news, quote, "all the committees are non functional," and added that House Members do not have the "capacity" to review hefty and technical pieces of legislation.
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