Govt. fails in the bid to dismiss Patterson as PAC Chairman
Kaieteur News – The Civic Progressive Party (PPP / C) has failed in its bid to remove the General Secretary of the Alliance for Change (AFC), David Patterson, as Chair of the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
PAC Chairman, David Patterson
The decision was passed on Thursday by Patterson during a virtual press briefing held by the AFC.
According to Patterson, when the Committee resumed its meeting this week and after receiving the legal advice – widely circulated and solicited by the Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs – it was found to go beyond the scope of the matter. requested. As such, the report was completely discarded.
According to Patterson, the solicitor – Kevon Best – was asked to respond simply to the question of Standing Order being able to override another.
Standing Orders are the rules under which the business of the National Assembly’s Standing Committees are conducted.
Patterson said that since the council went beyond the scope of what was asked for, the Committee could not adopt the report from the solicitor and, “therefore, there was no way forward.”
According to Patterson, “… at last, obviously, the report was taken out; there was no way forward. ”
This, he said, led to the next item on the agenda of the PAC meeting being the No Confidence Motion to dismiss him as Chairman.
The AFC Secretary-General noted, “clearly with no way forward, the motion was not allowed.”
He explained, “if the proposal was approved and we started discussing it, we would actually be where we were on three previous occasions. So, what was done, we moved on, it was disapproved and we moved on. ”
The AFC Secretary General noted that, moving forward with the PAC Agenda, “we had full participation, opposition from the opposition as well as the government side on those issues and are pleased to meet again next Monday to continue the examination (agencies ) budget. ”
AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan, who provided his party with in-house legal advice on the way forward in terms of removing the PAC Chairman, said that Patterson’s action at Committee level was to ban the motion tabled by the government. to be dismissed as Chairman.
He was adamant that “there is no precedent anywhere in the Commonwealth for a No Confidence Motion against a Chairman appointed by the main opposition party.”
With the motion disqualified, Ramjattan asked, “that’s the end of the matter.”
He noted, however, that the LLP was not allowed to venture outside its remit, which was to examine the reports of the Auditor General who stated that the actions of government members were supposed to stall the process only.
The proposal to remove Patterson as PAC Chair was tabled by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira.
The government was seeking to dismiss Patterson as head of the CAP following scathing reports in January this year that he had received expensive gifts – including a $ 900,000 gold bracelet – from several government agencies under his control, while serving as Minister of Works Public under the Administration David Granger.