PAC Report doctored or flawed—says Hon. Delores Christopher

By Mellica McPherson.

 It has become a case of “they say” and “she said” since Fifth District Representative, Hon. Delores Christopher told members of the Legislative Council at the 4 October Sitting that the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) Report was doctored and flawed. Since Hon. Christopher’s proclamation Members of the Opposition had and are continuing to refute that statement. In fact, some members of the Opposition held a press conference on Tuesday and used that forum to dismiss the allegation.

Hon. Christopher’s statement suggesting that the Report was doctored and flawed came just before the defeat of the Motion to have the Council adopt the PAC Report.

Hon. Christopher made that comment after it was discovered that some minutes from meetings of the PAC (which she is a member of) were left out of the Report. She told the Council that “the issue of the minutes is a very serious one, giving the pertinence of the information that was left out and given the allegations.” The Fifth District Representative advised that the information that was given to the Committee by the Financial Secretary as it relates to the sub-heads was left out. “I find it hard to accept that these were not deliberately left out of the minutes, because it speaks to the heart of the misappropriation allegations, “she said. The Member of Council told her colleagues that she was at a point where she believes that “there should be an investigation into this” (meaning the missing minutes).

Hon. Christopher announced that the credibility of the PAC Report is at stake: “What else in this document is faulty, what else was left out from this presentation? Is this the Report of the PAC or is it the Report of an Opposition that is still bitter over a lot of things?,” she asked.

Ms. Christopher went on to say that “this document that is before us was doctored, we need to investigate why certain information was left out. Here we are with a document that needs to be thrown out that’s as clear as I see it. A very questionable do, maybe we need to go through it with a finer comb. I think the public understands exactly what is happening. They (the Opposition) are so eager to make an allegation, to make a change,.... the document was well doctored, and we don’t know whether it was the PAC who did the doctoring or the Opposition.”

However, later on in the Sitting the Chairman of the PAC and Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Ralph T. O’Neal refuted the statements made by Hon. Christopher, by informing that her allegations are serious. Hon. O’Neal said that he wanted to know who doctored the Report, because he knows that it was not him.

Almost a week later, First and Third District representatives, Hon. Andrew Fahie and Julian Frazer continue the rebuttal. Hon. Frazer said that the claims about the minutes being omitted “is utter rubbish.”

While on the other hand, Hon. Fahie stated that “the government’s defense during the debate was their claim that the Report is flawed and doctored.” He explained that the Report was neither of the two: “The PAC was investigating many other areas besides Glover Park, and the minutes that were not relevant to the Glover Park sub head were extracted. The minutes were not distorted in any way, they are the same as the original minutes. So nothing was doctored.” The First District Representative continued his argument by stating that “it would not have been prudent to include the minutes not relating to the subject in the Report.” With that said, Hon. Fahie declared that “the Opposition can in no way support the premise that the minutes were flawed,” and  rested that subject by adding that “ there was no missing minutes, and that the argument claiming there is “was a spin put on by Government. The end part of the original minutes had nothing to do with the investigation,” he commented.