Let members of Parliament do their duty

Just two days after my article appeared in The Times, while mine took at least five days to make it, Robert Arrigo, The PAC Has Specific Task To Perform (October 21), tried to give the impression that things happened differently in the Public Accounts Committee. In fact, the Nationalist Party did not only try but managed to block the debate within the PAC on the Auditor General’s report on the extension of the Delimara power station, commonly referred to as the BWSC issue. The PN did everything to discourage discussion and also refused to summon witnesses as is done regularly.

The Auditor General published a report after eight months of investigations.

According to the standing orders, such reports can be debated by the PAC in the presence of the same Audit Office and also by summoning witnesses to comment on the findings of the Auditor General.

This is the standard procedure adopted since the setting up of this standing committee in 1995.

Readers should note that this was not the first time that instructions to conduct investigations were given to the Auditor General. When completed and his reports were made public, they were debated by the PAC and people were summoned to give evidence.

But, this time round, since the issue is BWSC, the PN are employing all the tricks at their disposal to avoid debating the Auditor’s report and summoning the key people to testify in front of the committee and, as such, confront the Auditor in the findings and conclusions contained in his report.

It is a known fact that some key people opted not to reply when they appeared before the Auditor and forgot what happened in this saga.

How on earth can the government member come to the conclusion that by discussing the Auditor’s report and summoning witnesses the committee will be “impinging on the impartiality of his office”?

I am sure the same member, who sits on this committee, is aware that when the annual report on the performance of the government departments is debated high government officials are called to give their views and testify before the PAC even if the report is drawn up by the Auditor General. So is the honourable colleague saying that by doing this, even in this specific case, the committee is “impinging on the impartiality of his office” or the committee members will ‘be fulfilling the function of the Auditor General’?

By debating such reports, the PAC will be complementing the Auditor’s work and will give a clear signal that his work was not all in vain but is being taken on board by the committee, which was set up purposely to scrutinise and also summon witnesses by working in tandem with the Office of the Auditor General.

As parliamentarians, it is part of our duty to see that the taxpayers’ money is well spent and if we do not do this we will be abdicating an essential part of our duties. So this is not something “reserved to a professional interrogator”, as stated by Mr Arrigo, but to those who are elected to represent the will of the people.

If what happened in the BWSC issue is only “perceived wrongdoing” then the government should not be afraid to discuss this issue. On other occasions, even in this legislature, witnesses were called after reports were drawn up by the Auditor General. It is very comfortable for the government to say doing so is the role of the Police Commissioner or of the Permanent Commission Against Corruption. It must also be remarked that, since its inception, the corruption commission never investigated or found a case of corruption. With regard to the Police Commissioner, it seems investigations get underway only when the Prime Minister orders so, since, as declared by the Prime Minister himself in an interview on television, he is aware that the Leader of the Opposition went to the Police Commissioner. In my opinion, there were other instances where the police should have investigated but did not.

It is crystal clear the PN does not want the debate to take place. According to the PN, the PAC should only put questions to the Auditor General as if it was the Auditor who had something to do with this issue and not those people who opted not to collaborate with him! As usual, it will ultimately be the people who will judge when time comes. However, until then, each member of Parliament is in duty bound to do what the people elected us to do in Parliament.

info@carmeloabela.org

The author, a member of Parliament, is Labour’s main spokesman for industry and foreign investment.