On the shoals

May 17, 2013 Editorial

One year and six months after our last election, which was supposed to elect a new government to steer our ship of state, we are stuck with the three parliamentary parties fighting furiously to control the steering wheel. Not surprisingly, being in “uncharted waters” as the Finance Minister observed after the elections, our ship has hit the shoals.
In medicine, it has been remarked that sometimes the medicine can be worse than the disease. Many in Guyana today are wondering whether the ballots cast in November 2011 to take care of our country’s woes may have not have actually exacerbated them. The present standoff is a good illustration of the fundamental problem created by the electorate creating a situation when one branch of government, the Legislature, is controlled by one party, and the Executive, which has authority to direct the operations of government, is controlled by another.
In other parliamentary jurisdictions where this anomaly has occurred, the Executive would work assiduously with one or the other parliamentary party to ensure that its Legislative agenda, necessary for governance, is passed. In Guyana, however, the introduction of an Executive Presidency by the 1980 Constitution, has introduced several innovations that offer the governing party the wherewithal to govern on its own, through a very positivistic reading of the Constitution.
In other words, it is the very narrow letter of the law that the Executive depends on for its authority, rather than the spirit of the law, which, the Opposition is evidently arguing, would give much more credence to the moral authority of it garnering a greater number of “the people”.
Take the two Bills passed by the Opposition-controlled Legislature. On the surface, it is reasonable that the Opposition should re-examine what they consider to be a carte blanche offered to retired Presidents, as far as several benefits such as number of motor cars. However, because the governing party is convinced that the intent of the legislation is fuelled by spite and designed to humiliate former President Jagdeo, they have raised a valid Constitutional objection that, by previous judicial decisions, any action to reduce already specified benefits would be illegal, in that it is tantamount to the expropriation of “property”. Many would see this as the government raising a legal “technicality” to thwart the course of equity and fairness.
The same is true of the second piece of legislation rejected by the President. The Constitution is very specific that certain offices, established through its direct imprimatur (“constitutional offices”) must be directly funded from the Consolidated Funds so as to augment their independence from Executive influence.
This is what the “Opposition Bill” seeks to accomplish. However, the Constitution also explicitly states that any bill that places a charge on the Consolidated Funds must emanate for the Executive. This was obviously placed there to ensure that only the government should initiate spending. Technically, while the Bill does not place an “additional burden” on the Consolidated Funds, it does nonetheless, initiate spending from it.
It is evident then that these varying interpretations can only be settled in the Courts, which have the mandate to perform this task. The government has already taken recourse to this institution on whether the Legislature can make cuts on its Budget. Obviously in retaliation for this hard-nosed approach by the government to use all Constitutional means available to avoid compromising, the AFC has threatened to hold up the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill in the Special Committee to which they had consigned it, unless the government reverses itself on the two Opposition Bills.
If this threat goes through, with the support of APNU, then the country will face some severe hurdles ahead, which will certainly hinder our overall national progress. But this is the inevitable result of the hard-ball politics which all the local parties seem determined to play. It is our sincere hope that this latest move, which has thrown our country onto the shoals, will force our politicians to begin cooperating.

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