Senate Rejects Acting Auditor General Appointment Amid Concerns Over Government’s Plans

Belize continues to operate without an Auditor General as the government had failed to develop a succession plan for the post. Without a plan to replace Dorothy Bradley when her term ended in August, the government sought to appoint an Acting Auditor General for four months. However, when the proposed appointment of Maria Rodriguez as the Acting AG was taken to the Senate on Monday, the majority rejected the idea, particularly, the Senators for the unions, churches and social partners. According to Senator Moses Alvin Benguche, the rejection was done based on several reasons. The first is that the government had sufficient time to recruit an individual for a permanent appointment; secondly, it was illogical to appoint a person for four months when election time is near. And, thirdly, the mechanism to address public salaries remains ongoing including for the Auditor General’s office; and it is apparent that the government is dragging its feet and is not taking the appointment of an Auditor General seriously. One final note by Senator Benguche was that giving a temporary post to a Belizean who has worked her way through the ranks is unacceptable, especially if an expatriate will eventually be hired after the elections. Today, Minister of Public Service, Constitutional and Political Reform, Henry Charles Usher responded to the Senators’ comments and why he believes it was the wrong decision. 

Henry Charles Usher, PUP Chairman : “I think this was a move spearheaded by the opposition really to spite the government but it was a really shortsighted move. Why ? For two reasons. It’s better to have an Auditor General in place even an acting Auditor General. The process is ongoing in terms of the advertisement for the post, I think five individuals at the last check had applied for the post. The deadline was last week Thursday and there is a procedure to go through in terms of the interview etc. So eventually a full time Auditor General will be in place but in that interim, that four month interim you want to have an acting Auditor General. There are certain things that the Auditor General has to sign off on and one of them is some allowances for auditors. Now what I found surprising is that the representative for the unions also did not support this resolution because the unions especially the PSU has been advocating that these allowances for the auditors be paid. There was some issue with the last Auditor General in terms of she didn’t agree with all of the allowances but the investigation has been done by public service, by finance and these allowances need to be paid. But now instead of spitting the government this union representative is spiting his own members because now they can’t be paid because we don’t have an Auditor General to sign off on these particular allowances. So really it was short sighted. And let met just clear up this point that I think the Senator for the UDP, Mike Peyrefitte tried to make that after the four months Ms.Rodriguez does not have a job. Absolutely false. Absolute misinformation. Ms Rodriguez is currently the Deputy Auditor General. She was appointed, or the resolution was attempted to be passed for her to be appointed as Acting Auditor General but after those four months she still has a job as Deputy Auditor General. It’s not like she will lose a job. So that point he was making about oh they will not want to do anything against the government because it’s only a four month contract, total misinformation and I’m surprised that he would try to mislead the Belizean people that way.” 

Dorothy Bradley has operated as the Auditor General of Belize since 2011 with a one-year hiatus in December 2021, and her reinstallation in 2022 for two years.