Teachers and Government Spar over Aborted PAC Meeting

Did members of the Government boycott the Public Accounts Committee meeting set for Thursday? The Belize National Teachers’ Union believes they did. The meeting was the first opportunity to question Auditor General Dorothy Bradley on the 2012-2013 Audit Report, but it turned out that two of the sitting ministers came down with ‘pink eye’ or conjunctivitis and a third had the flu. But the B.N.T.U. finds that all too coincidental. In a press release, it stated that the P.M.’s statement that the Committee is functional is belied by the absences and says that they question whether the P.M. and Government are serious, or simply taking Belizeans for fools.  This evening, a response from the Government indicated that after a prior meeting on October twelfth was called off by PAC Chair Julius Espat, they got late notice of the health issues with the ministers and could not find others to deputize for them.  Feeling that the nation would not be properly served if only the one available minister attended, they asked for the postponement, and promised to be back in full force for the next meeting on November ninth.  Additionally, one of the ministers confirmed to have ‘pink eye’, John Saldivar, has offered tongue-in-cheek on Facebook to have his doctor publish a statement on his health issues.