Parliament not blocking PAC -Speaker

Speaker of parliament Catherine Gotani Hara has clarified issues surrounding the pending meeting of the Public accounts committee of Parliament.

On Tuesday, the committee failed to meet and deliberate on some critical issues as the secretariat directed that proceeding with the meeting would be illegal due to outstanding issues.

There were fears that the checks and balances by the Public Accounts Committee on government would be affected following the directive.

Currently, the court is yet to give its final determination on the matter following the intervention of the Attorney General.

Namalomba faults the secretariat’s move of being ill timed, arguing that failure to have the committee meet will contribute to further plunder of public resources due to lack of checks and balances.

According to Hara, parliament recognises Namalomba as the Chairperson as directed by the court but he can’t chair the current committee as it is a reconstituted one.

“We have always recognised Honourable Namalomba as the chairperson of PAC and he has been sent on errands in his capacity as chairperson but what is difficult for us is the one the committee has been reconstituted it means a new chairperson is elected and number of members automatically goes up which is against our standing orders,” Gotani-Hara said.

Meanwhile, Gotani-Hara has refuted allegations that parliament is blocking the committee from carrying out its duties saying that they are waiting for the final determination from the court.

“Insinuating that parliament and the speaker does not want PAC to meet because we don’t want the committee to discuss issues of the national importance is very wrong, it is not in our interest to block any committee from meeting because that is not our duty,” said Gotani-Hara.

Among the key inquiries the committee was scheduled to conduct were on the fertilizer scam, fraud at the Accountant General’s office and audit on the expenditure of the president’s trip to the united Nations General Assembly UNGA.