PNM to replace John-Bates on PAAC

PNM sources have con­firmed that Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates will be re­placed on the Pub­lic Ac­counts and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Com­mit­tee.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that a let­ter has been sent to Par­lia­ment, and Par­lia­ment has ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt.

This fol­lows re­ports that sur­faced on Mon­day al­leg­ing that John-Bates as­sist­ed for­mer Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh in prepar­ing and edit­ing his wit­ness state­ment be­fore he ap­peared be­fore the PAAC.

The PNM Sen­a­tor is al­so a mem­ber of the com­mit­tee.

Leaked doc­u­ments pur­port­ed­ly show tracked changes and com­ments made by John-Bates on the Min­is­ter’s state­ment dat­ed March 23, two days be­fore a key PAAC meet­ing. In one com­ment, she re­port­ed­ly ad­vised the Min­is­ter to be “cau­tious” about in­clud­ing cer­tain in­for­ma­tion if he had not been aware of it dur­ing his tenure.