Auditor General Faces JPAC in Open Session

Today, the National Assembly of Belize hosted its first public hearing for the Joint Public Accounts Committee Hearing for 2025. The committee is chaired by Member of the Opposition, Lee Mark Chang and includes members of both the House of Representative and the Senate. And the committee’s role is to ensure that public funds are spent efficiently, transparently and in the interest of the Belizean people. At the center of today’s deliberations was the Auditor General’s Report for 2015/2016. Auditor General, Maria Rodriquez was called before the committee at the beginning of the hearing.

 

Maria Rodriquez, Auditor General

“When it comes to the hiring of junior clerks, in the case of audit clerks we do not have a say in who comes as audit clerks. So we will find having clerks coming in with different degrees other than accounting and it takes a bit more time training someone without the accounting background. I will say that when it comes to middle management level and the more technical roles, we do enjoy the support for the Ministry of Public Service to be a part of the shortlisting. We cannot agree pay scale on salaries, but they have people that come with significant experience. We cannot do nothing about that. They have to come in in the lower point because that is what the regulation say. But I do have a concern with the hiring of junior staff, because it takes time to train them on the accounting and auditing we do.”