ADRIAN STRACHAN, the Auditor-General, says he was willing to co-operate with Parliament's request to provide a copy of his annual report to each of the 60 Members of the House.
However, he said, he was concerned about the confidentiality of the report in such circumstances.
Mr. Strachan told The Gleaner yesterday that for the last 22 years, since he assumed office, he had been providing "a few" copies of his report annually to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
"I never assumed at any time that it was our responsibility to provide copies for all the Members of Parliament," Mr. Strachan said. The laws quite clearly stated that his duty was to present the report to the Speaker, whose duty it was to table it and order the printing of copies for the MPs, he said.
Although he had not yet received the letter from Mrs. Shirley Lewis, the Clerk to the Houses of Parliament, outlining the request of the Prime Minister and fellow MPs for him to provide enough copies for the Parliament, Mr. Strachan said he had discussed the matter with her.
But Mr. Strachan said he was concerned that it might be difficult to retain the confidentiality of the report prior to it being tabled in the House, if it has to be sent to a printery for scores of copies to be made.
"I spoke to the Clerk and told her that it is my understanding that that is the duty of Parliament. But she said that it would be difficult, so I undertook to provide additional copies," he said.
Mrs. Lewis said yesterday that there had never been copies adequate to be circulated to each MP. She said one copy was kept in the library for the benefit of the MPs. "If more is needed we normally send to the Auditor-General for more. It is a matter of cost-saving," she said.
On Tuesday, Government MPs criticised the Auditor-General for sending a limited number of copies of his report to the House, resulting in copies not being available for them.
Dr. Peter Phillips, Leader of the House, said on Tuesday that he could not understand how come only four copies of the report were available, when it was tabled on January 19.
Violet Neilson, Speaker of the House, ordered that in the future no report be tabled without sufficient copies being available for the MPs.
But, Dr. Phillips was not satisfied: "I appreciate your ruling Madam Speaker and certainly concur very strenuously with what you have ruled. But, I would like nevertheless, Madam Speaker, to really understand by what procedure four copies are laid here, only four!
"There is one copy in the House and yet the document has become public knowledge without other members having been alerted or other copies being available. I would certainly like to know and certainly other members, generally, would like to know how that has come to be the case?"
Mrs. Neilson: "It is placed in the library and I suppose that's where ... But as I've said, it will not be laid (in the future) until we have enough copies to put for each member and anything that is here in short, then the Clerk will protect it until then.. I don't know if there is any other means of people getting them!"
Dr. Phillips said it was a very disturbing situation. He said the requirement was that the report must be made to Parliament: "Not to part of the Parliament, not to one person in Parliament, not to the Press before Parliament, but to all the elected representatives."
