The PAC and Transparency

Julius Espat

Cayo South area representative Julius Espat is chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. The Committee met last year with Auditor General Dorothy Bradley to go over the process of compiling the 2012-2013 audit report. But according to committee member Patrick Faber, the last three meetings of the Committee have been canceled. Still yet, Espat says that will not stop him from pursuing transparency from his colleagues in government.

Julius Espat, Area Rep., Cayo South

“You have to shame them Madam Speaker; we have to shame them to the point where they start do the right thing. We cannot allow them to be able to make decisions behind closed doors and fall under this supposed parliamentary regulation that does not provide transparency. And the transparency for a public accounts committee – you know what it will do? It will provide trust, because after you done shame them a couple times and maybe some of them will have to be shackled up – that will happen; but after that happens, Madam Speaker, and people start seeing that the system starts works clearly, then the Belizean people will have trust in the way they are governed. It’s a simple formula Madam Speaker, and the Public Accounts Committee is important. I am appealing again to the B.N.T.U., to the teachers, to the social partners, the large populace out there. The party leader, and our leaders in this House, we have agreed that it is important for this to happen, Madam Speaker. But we can only say it; they can do it. They know they’re on the way out, Madam Speaker; at least do something good, so we can have transparency.”