Barbados PAC to Investigate Mia Mottley Administration's Allocation of Taxpayer Funds

The Mia Mottley administration will soon have to account for how it has spent taxpayers’ money, the chair of parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said.

Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne identified the millions allocated for Cricket World Cup projects as an area of concern. When the PAC resumes on June 24, it will set a work agenda including a public inquiry into specific spending, he said at a press conference on Thursday.

The PAC, responsible for scrutinising government spending and holding ministers to account over the spending of public funds, is chaired by the leader of the opposition. It lay dormant through the first two years of the Mottley administration’s second term until Thorne crossed the floor of the House of Assembly to oppose the government.

“We have heard several conflicting statements about this $50 million Barbados dollar spend,” Thorne told journalists. “When it first came to public attention, we were told the spending was for Kensington and cricket development. That seemed to have exceeded Kensington’s borders … because we were told $5 million was going to Oistins.”

He argued there had been “a lot of inconsistency” in government reports on spending, citing a $7 million vote for lights at Kensington Oval that was separate from the $50 million.

“Barbadians need to ask where this $50 million has gone,” he declared.

The opposition leader also voiced concerns over the upgrade works at Oistins, questioning how $5 million earmarked for the project could have been spent on the “very ad hoc” work done just days after the bid was announced around April 4.

The PAC head suggested casual observers do not believe the government’s claim of the amount spent on renovating the famed Oistins Bay Garden, likening it to the “mark of the beast”.

Thorne, the MP for Christ Church South which includes Oistins, said: “As taxpayers, as citizens, we are not happy that the expenditures are dubious, that people do not believe that $5 million has been spent on Oistins.”

Other areas highlighted for investigation include $60 million spent on the HOPE housing project, which has delivered just 131 homes with none occupied, and ongoing spending on the “dormant or dead” medical marijuana industry.

Thorne vowed that as long as he remains PAC chair, public hearings will go ahead once a quorum of five is met, despite currently having only 12 of 13 members appointed.

The opposition leader said nothing, including the absence of a full membership turnout, will stop the hearings, all of which will be held in public.

On the HOPE housing project, he said even though the prime minister has promised an inquiry, the PAC will carry out its own investigation.

“I know the prime minister spends a lot of time outside Barbados,” Thorne said. “If the public believes the PAC should initiate an investigation, so shall we do and save the prime minister some time.”

He argued it was the Cabinet that approved funds from the Housing Credit Fund to HOPE.

The PAC head further asserted: “The marijuana industry has been dormant, and if it is not dormant, it is dead. We continue to spend money from month to month on an industry, on an administration over an industry that is dormant or dead.”

The new PAC includes government MPs Marsha Caddle, Corey Lane, Edmund Hinkson, Kerrie Symmonds and Colin Jordan, and senators Lisa Cummins, Chad Blackman and Gregory Nicholls. Opposition members are Trecia Watson, Ryan Walters and independent senator Crystal Drakes, alongside Thorne. (EJ)