PAC, man, is no game. Nor should it be, Mr Editor. At least not the one I am constantly going on about. Readers will know where I stand on the matter of the Public Accounts Committee. It is long since time that this bipartisan parliamentary committee started to flex its legislative muscle and got on with the job of tracking how our Government manages our money and not just years after the fact, after funds have been spent and the damage has been done.

We may just have passed the Rubicon — finally, thankfully — after last week’s events on the Hill.

The rules on the Hill clearly provide that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) can examine, review and report on current expenditures. Here’s what the applicable rule states:

“The Public Accounts Committee shall have the duty of examining, considering and reporting on:

(i) The accounts showing the appropriation of the sums granted by the legislature to meet the public expenditure of Bermuda.”

Seems clear enough to me — and wide in scope, too. There are a couple of other options for pursuit by the PAC under the rule: to also take up:

(i) such accounts as may be referred to PAC by the House

(ii) the report of the Auditor General for any such accounts

The three options are not mutually exclusive. The PAC can pursue one or two or all three at once — if it likes.

But we pretty well all know the history to the PAC. It has not been as effective as it could be: waiting for and acting on reports of the Auditor General, chasing after events that have long since happened; ie, the horse and the stable have long since gone.

It really didn’t require a nameless, faceless government spokesman to tell us what has been custom and practice.

The failings we know only too well. What we desperately need on and off the Hill is a change from the old way of doing things, thank you very much. Please, let us not stand pat on the basis of custom and practice. In the words of the Finance Minister, who incidentally was a past chairman of the PAC himself, the status quo should no longer be an option.

The PAC is meant to play a key role in ensuring actual transparency and accountability when it comes to government spending. Ministers and civil servants need to know that whatever they do in the dark may well come out in the light of public scrutiny by a robust PAC. The very possibility (read threat) of public examination and questioning is meant to have a salutary effect as well.

It’s one of the parliamentary means by which we, the taxpayers, are meant to be assured that public funds are being managed correctly and properly; in short, that there’s no misappropriation of monies without cause or explanation.

Surely, we can all use a little more of that, Mr Editor?

I am aware of the criticism. It was just politics, Barritt. Maybe. But there is a good reason why the chairman of the PAC also happens to always be the Opposition spokesman for finance.

It is not just so that he or she can understudy the Finance Minister and know what’s under the government hood.

The mere fact that the chair is from the Opposition party is meant to provide sufficient incentive to get cracking.

Let’s also be clear on another point: the four government members on the PAC are the majority. By their collective vote, they are not meant to be simply obstructive. They have, by their voices and votes, the means to provide a check and balance on any direction in which the three Opposition members want to go.

That was one of the ironies to last week’s events. The OBA MPs were fairly presumed to be on board.

The other was that a Government that ran on an election platform of change to bring about greater transparency and accountability was seen to be against. If there is something that needs fixing to make it happen, then help fix it.

For my money, the PAC is one of those parliamentary opportunities where politics intersects with the duties and responsibilities of being a backbench MP, whether Opposition or Government, and to do a job that doesn’t just benefit party but country.

One final comment: our system of governance works best when it is allowed to work.