September 17 2018
Regional Executive Off-icers (REOs) have complained about the treatment they receive from the Public Accounts Commit-tee (PAC) of Parliament.
According to a statement on Friday from the Ministry of Communities, the REOs claimed during a two-day Leadership Retreat that they have been “vilified and unfairly treated for matters out of their control” by the PAC.
The statement notes that “according to the REOs, the PAC ought to be involved in guiding and advising Regional Execu-tive Officers as opposed to bombarding, ridiculing and ultimately reducing the morale of REOs in a manner reflective of a political agenda.”
A call was also reportedly made for technical staff of the regions, particularly at the middle management level, to similarly be subject to scrutiny from the PAC.
Hosted under the theme “Catalysing Regional Dev-elopment through Trans-formational Leadership”, the retreat which was held at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Lili-endaal afforded REOs the opportunity to address some of the challenges they face in actualizing the regional development agenda set out by the President David Granger administration.
The REOs according to the statement benefited from presentations on Transformational Leader-ship by Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Communities, Emil McGarrell; as well as an intimate question and answer session with Education Minister Nicolette Henry on the state of public education in the regions including the maintenance of schools and school playgrounds while Permanent Secretary of the Natural Resources Ministry Joslyn McKenzie provided updates on mining operations in the regions and the role of the regional administrations.
The officers were also given an opportunity to air their grievances and they expressed concerns about critical staff vacancies in their regions lamenting the delays in the filling of these staff shortages by the Public Service Commission.
They further called for a standardized system which allows for more collaboration and communication between and among the regional accounting unit, sub-treasury and state auditors and expressed the need for government agencies and officers located in Georgetown to be mindful of the difference in operations between the coast and the hinterland, particularly as it relates to the cost of living and transportation.
REOs have come in for stinging rebukes at the bipartisan PAC over financial irregularities in their region’s accounts.
In June this year, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Communities McGarrell had sought a suspension of the examination of regional accounts by the PAC so that the accounting officers can better prepare for the hearings.
In a letter addressed to PAC Chairman Irfaan Ali, dated June 26th, 2018, McGarrell made the request for the suspension to allow those with financial responsibility for Regional Democratic Councils extra preparation time. “While the Ministry is desirous of seeing this process through expeditiously, we are constrained to take this course of action due to the recent unsatisfactory level of performance before the PAC. This time will be used to have regional officials better prepare to assist the PAC in carrying out its mandate,” the letter stated.
PAC member Juan Edghill, who released McGarrell’s letter to the media was not impressed by the request for a suspension. He pointed out that every region that appeared before the PAC has had the services of the Audit Office, the Accountant General and the Financial Secretary available to them to help with preparations.
“It was disclosed that these services have not been utilized by the officers, thus resulting in them being unprepared for their appearances before the PAC,” he related.
REOs at recent sessions of the PAC have been sent away from the hearings before the examination of their region’s accounts could be completed. It was always the case that the REOs and team could not provide satisfactory responses to questions posed by members of the PAC.