A MORE PREDICTABLE SYSTEM IS NEEDED

Mar 17, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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During the course of an overseas visit by a government delegation, there are discussions about economic cooperation with the host nation.
The local delegation advances a proposal for the construction of a specialist hospital and sensing receptivity by the foreign government, presses for that government to fund the hospital.
The foreign government agrees and indicates that it will finance the hospital once the government handles certain aspects such as land- clearing and preparation.
This project was however not part of the country’s Budget. It could not be because it was only approved after the budget and developed during the course of the visit.
Because there is a need to move quickly on the proposal made by the foreign government, the government is then forced to move to find the resources to get the land identified for the hospital.
Since the costs for the land preparation and other mobilisations costs were not part of the country’s national budget, the government had to include them in a supplementary provision and go to parliament after the fact for approval of the spending. Suppose when the government took this provision to the parliament, it was shot down by the opposition which held a majority. And suppose the grounds upon which it was shot down was that it was not an urgent need and should have been foreseen.
Is this the basis upon which one expects a supplementary provision to be rejected by the opposition?
Should it be shot down for lack of sufficient details? No. It should not. Instead additional information should be requested pending approval.
Take another hypothetical example. The government receives funding from an external source. These are disbursements from foreign sources. These monies do not constitute withdrawals from the contingencies fund of the country. There are flows to the country but they have to be brought to account in keeping with the country’s financial laws.
What happens when the opposition refuses to approve the provision and asks that it be resubmitted?
The basis surely cannot be that the government should have foreseen these sums. If, however, support is withheld because of insufficient details being provided, this is a credible basis.
Last Thursday, there were important developments in the parliament. The government got through some important supplementary papers because one of the opposition parties opted to abstain when a division was called for.
But what is worrying is why did the other opposition party not consent to the passage of the provision or also abstain? If it opposed the passage of the provision, it has to do so on credible grounds. So what were these grounds?
This issue may seem at this stage purely one of academic interest but it is not. It is likely that the issue of supplementary spending is going to rear its head in the parliament in the future. Therefore, the question of just what should be the basis for withholding support or voting against such provisions needs to be examined especially in the case of monies drawn from the contingencies fund.
There has to be some consistency involved. The refusal to approve certain supplementary provisions can pose problems for local suppliers who would have supplied goods or services only to find that they cannot be paid because the government did not get the approval it needed in parliament.
It can also pose a problem in terms of funds from overseas which are required to be accounted for. As such, there has to be credible grounds for rejecting supplementary provisions.
While the government may have experienced relief that it finally managed to get most of its supplementary provisions through, the possibility of this situation occurring in the future needs to be looked at, and a more predictable set of rules agreed upon. This is all the more necessary because Guyana has a minority government and the opposition has a majority in the parliament. If all the parties wish to have a smooth functioning legislative term, it is incumbent upon them to sit at the level of the tri-partite talks and work out clear cut rules to guide any future supplementary spending.
There will always be the need for supplementary financial papers to be prepared. It is in the nature of how governments are run and how agreements take place.
If there is a lack of information, then the opposition has a right to withhold approval until they get the details. As such, an agreed to threshold for information has to be established so as to avoid a situation whereby the opposition feels that it does not have enough information to make a decision.
On the other hand, the argument that only if spending is urgent and unforeseen can it be sanctioned by the parliament is not going to be accepted as credible.
Therefore, the sides need to learn from this recent example and sit down and devise clear cut rules to ensure that a more predictable way of dealing with supplementary provisions is developed.

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