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Report on Treasury Memo submission malicious – Finance Minister

Jul 14, 2010 News

Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh has described as wicked and malicious, a report that appeared in yesterday’s issue of Kaieteur News under the caption ‘Finance Minister tables Treasury Memorandum one month late’.
Dr Singh said that the Memorandum was due June 10, last, and was actually sent to the House on June 11 but the offices were closed.
He explained that Minister Jennifer Webster was one of the people who sought to prepare the Memorandum in time for the deadline.
Having failed to have the Memorandum submitted on June 11, the government submitted it to the Speaker of the National Assembly on June 14.
There has been no sitting of the National Assembly since the Memorandum was submitted. The next sitting is tomorrow, more than a month since the last sitting.
“Had your newspaper reported that it was three days late I would have agreed,” Dr Singh said. He said that he is disappointed with what passes for reporting, given that the newspaper did not seek his comment on the issue before publication.
He said that Thursday’s presentation can in no way be attributed to him. “It seems as if I am being singled out for unfair treatment,” he said.
He pointed to a previous report that described him as contemptuous. “People may call me many things but certainly not contemptuous. What is contemptuous about that train of events is yet to be disclosed by the Chairperson.”
The Memorandum was tabled a few hours outside the deadline because of a host of factors, all outside the control of the Ministry, he added.
And in a press release issued yesterday, the Finance Ministry said that “it is inconceivable that the Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee can criticise and label anyone on the grounds of delay in discharging (his) responsibilities.”
The Ministry noted that the Public Accounts Committee is the same “opposition-led PAC whose functions continue to be characterised by delays on delays.”
“The public is kept up to date with the dates on which the annual submission of the Public Accounts by the Auditor General is done. What the current chairperson would not like to disclose are the dates the Auditor General submitted the annual report for each year from 2000 to 2008 and the dates the corresponding PAC reports were actually submitted to the House.”
The Finance Ministry added, “In the case of the 2004 Auditor General’s report, the said report was tabled in the National Assembly on March 16th, 2006. The PAC concluded its deliberations and tabled its 2004 report, four years later in March, 2010.
“That information would expose the hollowness of the current claim about delays by the Minister of Finance and should lead to the real issue, the functioning of the opposition led PAC.
Even more alarming is the factually inaccurate assertion by the Chairperson of the PAC that there has been a delay in the submission on the latest treasury memorandum.
The Standing Orders refer to a stipulated time of 90 days within which the Government should respond to the Parliamentary Resolution on the PAC report.

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