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| Richards to Request
NHC, La Valle Accounts |
| By Sheena Brooks |
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Hon.
Shawn Richards
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PAM parliamentarian Hon.
Shawn Richards has been named to a Public Accounts Committee
overseeing government expenditure and he says he plans
to request the accounts of the National Housing Corporation
(NHC) and La Valle project to name a few.
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Hon. Dr. Denzil
Douglas appointed Richards, Hon. Timothy Harris, Hon.
Patrice Nisbett and Senator the Hon. Nigel Carty as
members of the Committee. Opposition Leader Hon. Mark
Brantley has been appointed Chairperson.
Speaking exclusively with The Observer, Richards
said it was his hope that the defunct committee would
be reactivated and its mandate carried out. He said
he was first named to the committee after being elected
to parliament years ago but the Committee had never
held a meeting since that time.
"I am hoping that this time that would change,"
he said.
Members of this Standing Committee of the National Assembly
have the authority to request financial records from
any department of government and also statutory corporations.
Committee duties also include ascertaining that the
authorized expenditure during each financial year including
supplementary expenditure has been applied to the purposes
prescribed by the National Assembly; scrutinizing the
causes which may have led to any excess over authorized
expenditure and to verify applications of savings on
other authorized items of expenditure: and summoning
any public officer to give any information or any explanation
or to produce any records or documents which the Committee
considers necessary in the performance of its duties.
Richards said he will soon be requesting that the Committee
meet to examine the financial records of certain statutory
corporations and capital projects. During the recently
concluded 2010 Budget Debate he raised the issue of
government accounting for spending on projects such
as La Valle, the West By-Pass Road and renewed his called
for financial statements for the NHC.
"Of course you can request financial statements
from any department or statutory corporation but at
the end of the day you may not necessarily end up with
audited statements, but at least you could have an idea
as to what is happening financially or otherwise within
these corporations or any other arm of the government.
Based on what you find out you can speak about it and
ask questions in parliament or you could make the information
available to the public. These are public records and
as such the public has a right to the information,"
he explained.
"I intend to request a couple of meetings to look
into certain issues, for instance the NHC which has
been in existence for about 13 years now and has never
had one single year of financial accounts laid within
parliament for that particular corporation. La Valle
again, that is another issue, as to how much money was
spent on that project; how much money the government
borrowed, how much was spent, the repayment of the loan
and the status of the project."
Richards said the opposition should be more robust in
such matters but elucidated that the information was
not being requested for personal or political motives.
"This is one of the means available to get this
information out of the government and bring it to the
public because you don't want the information for your
personal knowledge or for that of your political party.
The public should be aware as to how their monies are
being spent."
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