Bermuda’s Public Accounts Committee will meet in public for the first time this Thursday.

It means people will finally be able to see for themselves how the group, comprising five MPs, checks whether taxpayers’ money is being spent properly.

For years, the United Bermuda Party has called for residents to be allowed into PAC meetings, while The Royal Gazette’s A Right to Know Giving People Power campaign has lobbied to end the practice of meetings being held in private.

According to PAC chairman Bob Richards, the committee — also including Government MPs Lovitta Foggo, Walter Lister and Patrice Minors, and his UBP colleague Patricia Gordon-Pamplin — has voted unanimously to open up after House of Assembly rules were modernised earlier this year.

This Thursday’s meeting is at 2.30 p.m. in the Senate chamber, when questions about advertising contracts will be put to a leading member of the Tourism Department.

For the full story, see tomorrow’s Royal Gazette.