7 News Belize

Opposition Chair Walks Out Of PAC Meeting
posted (September 4, 2013)
7News has been closely following the back-and-forth between the Opposition, the People's United Party, and the Government of Belize over the Public Accounts Committee, and how it should run. The Opposition wants the composition to change to include the social partners, while Government says that it is fine the way it is, and could do its job well if the chairman, Julius Espat, really wanted to look into public spending.

And while they disagree on those issues, they also can't agree on which Auditor General's reports to review. The PUP wants to go forward from 2012; while the UDP is ok with that, but also wants to go back to the Musa years.

And so with those known differences of approach, today, another meeting was called, and once again, business was stalled because of this disagreement on which reports ought to be reviewed. 7News was there when both sides exited from the brief meeting, and we asked them to explain why yet again, no progress was made in the actual functions of the committee, which continues its history of non-performance. Here's how they explained it:

Hon. Julius Espat - Chairman, PAC
"I had a proposed agenda as chairman and they want to not agree to that and have a new proposed agenda. We are saying that, I cannot accept any proposed agenda that goes against what the mandate of the Public Account Committee is - it is a simple mandate, it is one of oversight."







Hon. John Saldivar - Member, PAC
"The meeting was called to order by the chairman and we discussed his proposed agenda which was voted down by the majority members by the committee, who proposed an alternate agenda - that agenda was aproved by the majority of members in that committee. At this point the chairman and his colleague walked out of the meeting."

Reporter
"What came out of this meeting?"

Hon. Julius Espat
"Absolutely nothing, which is what the government wants."

Hon. Michael Finnegan - Member, PAC
"He made a proposed agenda to discuss the 2010/2011 auditor's general report. Mr. Saldivar made a counter-proposal that we proceed with 2003, 2004,2005 auditor's report. There was a vote and Mr. Saldivar's proposal was accepted."

Hon. Julius Espat
"They want to go back and do what they call 'forensic auditing' - they are trying to go on a political witch hunt and we are saying - the Prime Minister and the Cabinet has all the power to go to the House of Representative and create a special select committee to do that. That is what they wish, we don't have any objections to that - what we are objecting to, is that they are trying to dilute what the PAC stands for. They are trying to distract the Belizean people from reality."

Hon. John Saldivar
"That agenda was the agenda of this meeting, just concluded. Once that agenda was accepted and the chairman walked out, under standing orders we had the power to select a pro-tem chairman which was selected and I was elected as the pro-tem chairman. We continued with the agenda as accepted and was approved by the committee. As we have proposed, we proposed on Monday (we will start September 23rd) to deal with the old ones and on Wednesday (September 25th) to deal with the ones that cover this current administration."

Daniel Ortiz
"Sir, so the chairman walking out won't actually affect the Public Accounts Committee meeting from moving forward."

Hon. John Saldivar
"The standing orders provide very clearly, that where the chairman is unable or in this case, unwilling to attend a meeting - that the committee has a right to select a pro-tem chairman so at each of these public hearings, if the chairman fails to appear then a pro-tem chair will be elected and we will continue with the public hearing."

Daniel Ortiz
"The chairman has accused the majority members of playing politics - how do you guys respond to that?"

Hon. John Saldivar
"Well, I think you have just heard what we have outlined as what the committee proposes to do - I don't know in what is playing politics. I had hoped that the chairman would have come here today, understanding that we are ruled by democracy in which majority rules."

And so, that's the position of PAC as it stands, the majority members plan to move ahead with their first public meeting on September 23, where they will look into the Auditor General Reports from 2003/2004 and 2004/2005. They have set out an elaborate agenda of which reports they plan to review on which days with John Saldivar as the acting Chairman if necessary.

If Chairman Julius Espat refuses to participate in the agenda as voted on by the majority, then a protem chairman will be elected, and the rest of the Committee will move forward with those reports.

And all indications are that the Julius Espat will not go along with the timeline set out by the majority members. He told us this evening that he has been instructed by his Party Leader that if the majority refuses to go with the agenda he proposed, then he should not participate in these meetings. Espat added that it is his belief that the standing orders would be violated if continue without him, as the duly appointed chairman, in reviewing the reports.

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