Business Senator Herrera Says JPAC Should Meet Every Two Months

Kevin Herrera

Business Senator Kevin Herrera, who spoke on behalf of his social partners colleagues, told News Five this morning that the work of the committee is critical to good governance and going for a prolonged period without meetings being convened is of serious concern.

Senator Kevin Herrera, Member, JPAC

“The work of that committee is to review how those monies are spent.  That’s a mechanism, that’s a control mechanism that’s built into the system to ensure that government spends the money in the way that it’s supposed to.  That committee now has a lot of work to do in terms of reviewing those spending.  Now, I think the social partner senators became concerned that meetings have not been held as frequently as we think it should have been.  And so, we wrote to the chair of the committee, the Honorable Tracy Panton, to try to get things back on track.  We feel that the work of this committee is extremely important and we feel that it’s a mechanism, like we said, it’s a control mechanism and if this mechanism is not working then we’ve lost a lot of that oversight that’s supposed to be in the system and so we have to make sure it works so that the system works.”

Isani Cayetano

“I understand that there is not a set schedule, per se, for meetings to be held, but how often, in your opinion, should you guys be meeting in order for this to be effective?”

Kevin Herrera

“I would hope [that] we would be able to meet monthly or at least maybe every two months.  Simply because, like I said, you know, we’re passing appropriations bill that’s in the millions and millions of dollars.  And so it’s important that, and these are taxpayers money in many respects and so it’s important that we monitor how those monies are spent.”