PAC Member Patrick Faber Hits Back at Chairman Espat

Julius Espat

A session of the Public Accounts Committee during which Auditor General Dorothy Bradley was scheduled to appear, was called off earlier today when four U.D.P. ministers who sit on the working group failed to show up for the meeting.  The scheduled sitting would have seen the auditor general responding to questions about irregularities described in her special report for 2012-2013.  News Five has been told that two of the four government officials are reportedly out with conjunctivitis.  Whether that information was duly communicated to the chairman of the committee ahead of the gathering, we are not certain; what we do know is that their absence has raised the ire of Cayo South’s Julius Espat and committee member, Caribbean Shores area rep Kareem Musa.  In a stern press release, the People’s United Party condemns the non-appearance as, “a clear disrespect of the proceedings, disregard for any oversight and it must be seen as an attempt to derail the session.”  The release goes on to say that Chairman Espat also chides Prime Minister Barrow for purportedly being duplicitous when he stated publicly that the exercise would see PAC going through the report in a manner that would be clear and understandable to the public.  In light of the PM’s comment, Espat says that the four U.D.P. ministers then decided that the public would be barred from attending the meetings.  Late this evening, Deputy Prime Minister Patrick Faber refuted those claims, first by stating that both of his cabinet colleagues are indeed afflicted with pink eye and secondly, that the chairman himself requested the postponement of a meeting that was previously scheduled for October twelfth.