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Most of requested US$25M already spent
…Parliamentary process only to rectify books – Corbin
“How is it that the government could spend that amount of money between now and December 31, when all the unused money has to be returned to the nation’s coffers?”
This was the question asked by Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition and Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform, Robert Corbin.
Robert Corbin
Corbin said, yesterday, that the majority of the US$25M now requested on the Financial Paper number three and four to be debated on Thursday has already been spent.
According to Corbin, the approval of the House on the two papers is only to rectify the accounting books to ensure that come December 31, they are in order.
Corbin said that the fact that the Minister of Finance, “comes so regularly for supplementary provisions illustrates the point that we have been making at every budget debate, that it is unrealistic and unreliable and it is a smokescreen to the Guyanese people as to what really is the true position.”
He did concede that it is a fact that some provisions in the allocations relate to foreign input into the budgetary allocations. “But these were predictable and therefore it shows how unreliable and incompetent the Ministry of Finance is in terms of planning budget.”
In seeking to emphasise his point, Corbin stated that there was no new situation that occurred to require at the month of October, November or December a sudden increase of millions of dollars in the security budget, “nothing significant has happened so it demonstrates lack of planning it.”
He said too that it illustrated that “they don’t want oversight…because when they come for supplementary provisions many of the projects lack the project profile.”
This, he said, should be there and clear so people could monitor and see how the provisions are being spent, “and sometimes when it comes so late they have already spent and are now coming for supplementary provisions to fill the gap for money they have already withdrawn from the Consolidated Funds.”
This, Corbin said, is a sham in the sense when the supplementary is being sought in many cases, “they have already drawn that money and spent it from the consolidated funds and are now seeking to correct it because there is a limit to which they can withdraw without approval from the Parliament.”
Corbin pointed out that the profiles outlined are put in such a way that there is absence of scrutiny.
He said that this is to allow them to carry on in a number of activities and obviously there is a lot of room for corruption. There is a lot of room for lack of value for money and there is no oversight from the Parliament on what is being done.”
Corbin charged, “There is absolutely no effective planning so one can’t look in advance and see objectively what is happening.”
“Certainly with the level of corruption and the level of pilfering that is taking place in the general award of contracts by the government, one must always view with suspicion manoeuvers by the Ministry of Finance for the sneaking in through the back door money already spent.”
He also pointed to what he called a Parliamentary deficiency, adding that the Public Accounts Committee is put in such a way that there is absence of scrutiny.
Corbin emphasised that the PAC is only activated after money is spent “to see whether money is spent along the lines intended by the Parliament. The PAC generally looks at the Auditor General’s report and having looked at that they also question ministries based on those reports.”
Finance Minister, Dr Ashni Singh, recently, by way of two supplementary papers tabled in the National Assembly, is seeking another $4,677,208,405 (the equivalent of US$25M) from the nation’s coffers.
The two papers are expected to be debated on Thursday.
On the supplementary provision of the capital estimates on financial paper four, the Guyana Sugar Corporation will be the beneficiary of another $1.4B in addition to the $1.8B for the construction of the packaging plant at Enmore.
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