The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

ACTING Prime Minister Chester Cooper has accused Parliament’s spending watchdog of trying to go beyond its authority in its probe of the National Investment Fund, rejecting Opposition claims that the government is obstructing the investigation.

Mr Cooper said he did not believe there was any obstruction. He said there was no reason the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) could not “speak with professionals at the AG’s office who are technical people who would understand these matters”.

He suggested the Opposition-controlled committee was letting politics drive its work.

“There is training by the clerk,” Mr Cooper said. “Once you become a part of a committee, politics being what it is, it is sometimes tempting to push the envelope, and we believe in some cases that is what the PAC may be doing.”

The PAC, chaired by Opposition leader Michael Pintard, is investigating how the Ministry of Finance moved and spent public money through an account at the Central Bank bearing the NIF’s name. Central Bank Governor John Rolle has confirmed in correspondence with Mr Pintard that the fund’s board never met, and the committee wants to know what legal authority the government relied on. Finance Minister Michael Halkitis has said $310.9m of NIF proceeds went to public infrastructure.

The dispute has centred on the legal advice behind those decisions. Mr Pintard has called on the government to waive attorney-client privilege and any convention of confidentiality so that Attorney General Wayne Munroe KC and his predecessor, Ryan Pinder KC, can disclose the advice they gave.

Mr Cooper said the government has an obligation to be transparent about public finances and is committed to making sure the public gets all the information it needs to reach its own conclusions. However, he said the PAC must work within the rules Parliament has set.

“In opposition, I served as a key member of the PAC,” he said, “and I understand its significance, its role, and its importance. But there are rules. There are rules of engagement, and those rules must be followed.”

He said established parliamentary procedures give the committee a way to obtain what it needs without exceeding its powers, which it should use “appropriately and responsibly”.

His comments follow a week of escalating clashes over the probe.

The committee’s three Opposition members voted on November 3 to summon Mr Pinder, who was attorney general when the advice on the fund was given. West Grand Bahama MP Kingsley Smith, the lone government member on the PAC, told the House of Assembly the summons was unlawful because the committee had not obtained the House’s permission. He said Mr Munroe had warned he may go to the Supreme Court if the PAC continued.

Mr Pintard has said the committee issued the summons on the advice of its secretary, who is also the clerk of the House of Assembly.

Mr Munroe, who appeared before the committee but declined to answer certain questions, has said the ministerial oath bars him and Mr Pinder from disclosing Cabinet advice and cannot be waived by anyone. He has also said the PAC was unable to identify anything wrong with the handling of accounts in the NIF’s name, and he pushed back against Opposition claims that the investigation was being obstructed.

Mr Pintard has accused the government of going back on Mr Halkitis’s September 16 pledge to fully co-operate with the committee. He has said the government is trying to “duck accountability”.