OPPOSITION Leader Andrew Holness has decided to take on the finance and planning portfolios in his shadow cabinet, pending any further developments on the Opposition benches.

However, there is still the issue of whether or not he will be available to chair the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the House of Representatives.

The PAC is normally chaired by the Opposition spokesman on finance, and deals primarily with reports from the Auditor General’s Department.

Under section 122 (subsection 1) of the Jamaica Constitution the accounts of the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court, the offices of the Clerk to Parliament, and the accounts of all departments and offices of the Government, including the offices of the Cabinet, the Judicial Service Commission, the Public Service Commission and the Police Service Commission, shall at least once in every year be audited and reported on by the auditor general who, with his/her staff, shall at all times be entitled to have access to all books, records, returns and reports relating to such accounts.

Section 122 (subsection 2) requires that the auditor general shall submit his/her reports made under subsection 1 of this section to the speaker of the House, to be laid before the House of Representatives. The speaker then assigns the reports to the PAC.

In addition, the PAC is required to look at the financial statements and records of government ministries, departments and agencies tabled in Parliament, although successive chairmen seem to have ignored this aspect of their mandate over the years.

The PAC, under the chairmanship of former Opposition spokesman on finance Audley Shaw, has met only twice this year, which has raised questions about the work of the committee.

I have been reliably informed, however, that the Opposition’s shadow cabinet will make a decision on the issue when they meet tomorrow.

EOJ TO APPEAR AT PAAC

Wednesday’s meeting of the House of Representatives Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) should be a very interesting one, with representatives of the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) scheduled to make a rare appearance.

This is because, on the advice of Parliament’s Legislative Counsel Camika Facey, South West St Catherine member of parliament Everald Warmington has won the right to have two motions he had tabled in March on the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) placed before the committee.

The EOJ team has now been invited by the committee to give assistance in arriving at a response to the motions — Private Members Motion (PMM) Number 3 and Private Members Motion (PMM) Number 12 — both tabled in the House on March 19 by Warmington.

PMM Number 3 asks that the emolument to be paid to the ECJ commissioners be made commensurate with the part-time jobs the commissioners perform, and in line with that paid to members of other governmental commissions and members serving on government boards; and further that the Wig and Robe Allowance now being paid to the commissioners be discontinued.

PMM Number 12 asks that immediate actions be taken to terminate the payments being made from the public purse to the political representatives or the ‘Nominated Members’ on the ECJ, and that if such salaries and allowances are deemed necessary, they be paid by their respective political parties; and that the ECJ (interim) Act be amended to delete section 1(1)(a) of the First Schedule, and any other sections that may make reference to, or empower political representatives to sit on the commission.

The motions were sent by the clerks to the House to the PAAC, which is chaired by Opposition MP Edmund Bartlett, for a decision by its members on both motions. However, the PAAC felt that it needed legal advice from Parliament’s Legislative Counsel before taking up the matter.

The PAAC wanted to know how it should address the motions; whether they should be discussed in-camera “due to their sensitive nature” when members of the ECJ are present; and whether they are flawed in making certain assumptions, including the call for the removal of the references to the political representatives/nominated members from the first schedule of the Act.

The Legislative Counsel responded that the member’s statement of his opinion and request that changes be considered, is an exercise of his democratic right to have his views (and implicitly that of his constituents whom he represents) heard and considered; the format and content of the motions were already deemed to be in order by the House of Representatives. The counsel also said that the committee is therefore charged to operate much in the way as the House would have done when considering the motions.

The Legislative Counsel also advised against in-camera meetings to deal with the motions, as the information to be considered may already be found in the public domain. She advised, however, that if there is a risk of the revelation of confidential information, the committee may vote to halt the proceedings and have the chairman demand that all strangers remove themselves from the meeting.

She also advised that the assertions made in the motions by Warmington are acceptable for the purpose of the argument being made, “as they do not in and of themselves impute malice or misconduct”.

“The committee, in its deliberations, will consider whether the assertions were in fact correct. The committee will then note its findings and recommendations in its report… The motions are not flawed and the committee should treat them in the manner set out above,” Facey advised.

The PAAC has since invited the EOJ representatives to Wednesday’s meeting, which will deal solely with the issues raised by Warmington in his motions.

THIS WEEK IN PARLIAMENT

* The House of Representatives will sit on Tuesday, November 19 at 2:00 pm.

* The Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) meets at 10:00 am on Wednesday.

* The Joint Select Committee on Security Interests in Personal Property meets on Thursday at 10:00 am.