the expected new PAC so that improved financial scrutiny is possible in the resumed democracy. The Bangladeshi officials com- mitted themselves to seeking to establish requirements that the PAC must report to Parliament and Ministers must respond to Parliament on what was being done to implement changes or correct weaknesses identified in PAC reports. Making Ministers account- able to Parliament for compliance with recommendations from PAC and audit reports would enhance the performance of the new demo- cratic dispensation. Successive reforms to the coun-
try’s parliamentary system had been implemented over the years to improve the democratic system, they said. Parliament’s Secretariat became independent from the civil service in 1994 and the concept of installing a caretaker government to run departments during election campaigns followed two years later to ensure that government pro- grammes and services were adminis- tered in a non-partisan way during a
campaign. Soon after that, other parliamentary reforms were intro- duced, including holding a Prime Minister’s question time. Adequate funding and staffing
for the PAC must continue in the new dispensation, requirements repeated by several other countries attending the seminar; a PAC Strengthening Project was being established to provide for, among other things, an independent sup- port unit to provide expert advice to the PAC when it is re-estab- lished. Strengthening the new Parliament’s ability to hold govern- ments accountable for the expendi- ture of public money was an ele- ment of a wider reform programme. In the past, PACs composed of up to 15 MPs and chaired by a Member elected by the House had been appointed for the full five-year life each Parliament.
The committee had examined
the reports of a comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) who held a constitutionally protected position independent of both the executive and Parliament. PAC inquiries had
344 The Parliamentarian 2008/Issue Four
led to the recovery of some misap- propriated funds, the suspension of officials who had violated procure- ment rules and the recovery of urban land which had been sold illegally.
But the C&AG’s audit reports did not go direct to Parliament. They went first to the President who forwarded them to the Finance Minister who tabled them in Parliament for referral to the PAC. The committee’s inquiries were sup- ported by the C&AG, but Ministers neither sat on the PAC nor appeared before it to answer for their departments’ performance. Ministers and agency heads must be made answerable to the PAC and responsible to Parliament. The PAC also met behind closed
doors. Participants in all three La Trobe seminars have identified media coverage of PAC investiga- tions as crucial to the success of their inquiries so that the public knows Parliamentarians are scruti- nizing the use of their tax money and Ministers and civil servants are aware of the consequences of