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The PPP must be reminded that the Constitution is the Supreme Law

May 09, 2012 Letters

 

 

Dear Editor,
We refer to an article in KN captioned “Govt has no obligation to transfer money to Consolidated Funds says Brassington.”
Might we remind anyone of this mindset that the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land? It is our understanding that in times of conflict in the interpretation of the supremacy of the law, the Constitution completely overrules any subsidiary law.
To support our position we have conducted research both on the legal system in Australia and the UK and the evidence clearly support that the constitution is the supreme law in those Commonwealth countries.  From our understanding, Guyana has used the Commonwealth Legal System to formulate the spirit and structure of our legal system.
Thus it is difficult to reconcile this deviation as practised by the PPP, from the established precedence?
We in the AFC want all Guyanese to know that the minority PPP is determined to contravene the letter and spirit of the law to hide over $50 billion of the people’s money in secret overseas and local NICIL, GGMC and Bank of Guyana accounts.  We see a civil case in the Law Courts in the making to legally expose and regularize this illegality.
If the PPP was to do the right thing and adhere to the Supremacy of the Constitution, then Section 216 of the Constitution clearly outlines the appropriate legal treatment for these hidden funds.  This is what Section 216 states:
“All revenues or other moneys raised or received by Guyana (not being revenues or other moneys that are payable, by or under an Act of Parliament, into some other fund established for any specific purpose or that may, by or under such an Act, be retained by the authority that received them for the purpose of defraying the expenses of that authority) shall be paid into and form one Consolidated Fund.”
In lay man terms this constitutional clause makes it absolutely clear that revenues from these agencies can only be retained on their books for the purpose of defraying their annual expenses.  Is NICIL’s annual expense $50 billion? It is safe to say that the answer is a resounding “NO”.
So why this secretive treatment for these vast amount of funds?  Only the PPP has the answers as to why they are prepared to violate the Supreme law of the Land – the Constitution.
We want to put on the record that the AFC will not rest as an organization until all of the people’s money is emptied out of these secret accounts and transferred into the Consolidated Fund.  The custodians of the Consolidated Funds are the people’s representatives in Parliament including the PPP MPs.
Therefore, it is difficult to follow why the PPP is not interested in greater accountability and transparency in their financial conduct in this new political dispensation. What is its financial intentions?
Dr Asquith Rose and Sasenarine Singh

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