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Govt. doesn’t deny financial irregularities
– Luncheon says PAC can make recommendations
The government is not denying charges of financial irregularities, but says the option the Parliamentary
Dr Roger Luncheon
opposition used two weeks ago in not approving supplementary spending has left the system of financial administration in a quandary.
“What specifically with regards to financial administration will come of this, up to now, I haven’t any answers,” said Dr Roger Luncheon, the government’s chief spokesperson.
The government is voicing concern over the way forward for financial administration after it failed to get the opposition’s support to $5.7 billion which it spent in the last three months of 2011.
The money was taken out of the Contingency Fund and counted as Supplementary Provision. It was used in various sectors.
The Government sought clearance for the money that was spent already, but the combined opposition questioned and voted against several areas of spending, and as a result the government could not get passed the legislation which would have approved the spending. Mrs. Deborah Backer, who acted as Speaker, adjourned the sitting until March 15.
Luncheon suggested that the move by the Alliance for Change (AFC) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) – the two Parliamentary opposition parties – was a conspiracy to frustrate the government and flex their political muscle; but he said no thinking was put into the end result.
“The attempts by the APNU/AFC alliance to undo and to revise laws, rules and conventions, Cabinet reasoned…took an unprecedented turn on February 16,” Luncheon stated.
The government said the question of the way forward should be asked of the opposition, moreso, the former minister of finance, Carl Greenidge, who sits on the opposition front benches for the coalition APNU.
For Dr Luncheon, it isn’t as if the government is disputing the fact that financial irregularities exist. He said that matters of financial irregularities have been noted by the Auditor General “since the time of the Republic,” once he had books to check.
However, Luncheon reasoned that the choice of intervention by the opposition was ill-conceived and ill-advised. He suggested that the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is the avenue where the administration and its adherence to financial rules and regulations are examined, and recommendations are made to the full House.
This avenue, he said, is what stands a greater chance of a fairly well defined outcome.
But the position taken by the opposition has left the door wide open and uncertain.
The government is calling for “mature judgment” on the part of the Parliamentary opposition.
“The spectre of that body unraveling Guyana’s development agenda with ill-conceived actions, Cabinet insisted, must be rejected,” Luncheon declared.
He said that “more thoughtful engagements at this the highest level of the land” is needed.
Dr Luncheon said that Guyana is on the verge of some of the most promising developments in so many areas that would impact on economy and well-being and status of average Guyanese, but the support of the opposition is needed in implementing that agenda.
“The inter-party talks that had from its inception lent weight to call for working together; sober and principled minds would have to come to the fore to bring about the desired change,” Luncheon stated.
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