The Ministry of Finance has come under fire for being unprepared to face the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Chairman of the committee, Davendranath Tancoo slammed officials from the Ministry on Wednesday following their failure to submit responses to questions on the National Lotteries and Controls Board (NLCB).
The lack of responses led to an early adjournment of yesterday’s sitting.
Tancoo said the committee was placed at a disadvantage without feedback from the ministry and he described the ministry’s lack of communication as “disrespectful.”
He said “I feel the Ministry of Finance has disrespected the PAC by not having either provided the information – I understand you had some constraints but (those) constraints could have been indicated to the committee at a previous point in time.”
Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance Michelle Durham-Kissoon apologised for the delay and said the ministry was still in deliberations over the completed responses.
She said “The expectation was that we would have been able to submit the completed responses. The deliberations with the Parliament staff last evening might have been too late to reschedule or put mitigation measures in place.
“As the business day drew to a close, it occurred to us that we might not have been able to comply with the submission of the completed responses.”
Durham-Kissoon said the ministry’s responses would be sent by Friday and Tancoo notified that the committee would sit again on January 27.
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