THE majority of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) members at Wednesday’s meeting expressed frustration over the committee not having enough clout to help determine the budgetary allocations for government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

“We have the agencies (come) here, but where are the results? Where are the resources? How meaningful is the committee, as important as it is? We need to give the committee the tools, and also there has to be a result,” lamented Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert.

“It’s like we have no teeth. Meeting after meeting we say please don’t come back unless — and they come back and smile graciously, and we give them two weeks, and when we do that, we really eat up the space for other discussions with other agencies,” she added.

Dalrymple-Philibert also argued that fiscal space constraints should not be an excuse for the insufficient resourcing of the committee. “Fiscal space has covered a multitude of sins. Those two words have to be used carefully,” she said.

Government backbencher Fitz Jackson argued that lack of resources aside, the airing of issues concerning the administration of public funds should not be seen as insignificant, as the deliberations and probing questions do, at the very least, have an impact on the attitudes of civil servants.

“I ask us all not to discount the value of the deliberations of the committee on the various subjects, even in the absence of monetary allocation to give us the support that we need,” Jackson said.

“It’s not only about the officers that come before us, but those throughout the rest of the public service. It does have an impact, though incremental it might be, in even just the approach of many in the public service in dealing with issues that come before us. Don’t believe that your efforts in the committee go wasted in improving the level of governance,” he stated.

Government MP Paul Buchanan argued that the committee, having deliberated with the MDAs over time, should be able to have more of a say in their annual allocations. “I just wonder where our remit ends, in terms of policy, and the appropriation of taxpayers’ money,” he remarked.

Veteran MP Mike Henry, as he has repeatedly done in recent times, cautioned against the PAAC becoming a “glorified PAC (Public Accounts Committee)”, insisting that the PAAC should have some influence on the allocation to MDAs.

“Having served so long on the PAC, one found that what we ended up doing was trying to close the gate after the horse has gone through it. Many of the priorities that come to us, set under policy, should be reversed, amended, changed, or added to. When we get the budget presented to us, we should be able to have a strong voice in recommending amendments to that,” Henry asserted.

Committee Chairman Edmund Bartlett noted that these were issues that should be taken up in the House, as the committee has no authority to change or make policy. “The place for your concerns to be made — strong and public — is another place, because policies emanate from the Government, and that’s where we should take all this kind of very useful guidance, to enable a policy,” he stated, adding however, that perhaps an argument could be put forward for the widening of the role of the committee.

At the same time, the members again lamented the committee’s workload, and the fact that it was not able to complete deliberations with the over 200 MDAs in any one fiscal year.

The committee, therefore, recommended in its report to the House that going forward, the MDAs should be taken according to priority, and relevance, in order to ensure that the most critical ones come up for review first.