Coalition Govt. condoning pattern of illegality

Dec 21, 2015 News

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– Financial Analyst

It appears that former Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh who was found by the courts to have illegally spent $4.5B from the Treasury, may escape any sanction from the Granger-led administration.
According to a financial analyst, the matter was taken to the High Court when the Government served in the opposition and it was found that the money was unlawfully spent.
Yet the matter is not being pursued since the APNU+AFC took office.
“Everything seems cool now between Government and Ashni. Absolutely no action is being taken,” the financial expert told Kaieteur News.
They just dropped the ball. One has to question what is really going on at the Chambers of Attorney General, Basil Williams, and the Offices of the Finance Minister and the Minister of Public Security.
When the President pursued this matter, it was Williams who represented him. So what is going on now? The matter is dead? Ashni spends billions and he just gets off?
It would be just a disgrace against this government which has promised us transparency and accountability.
“Does government realize its obligations in protecting the state and ensuring that charges are instituted when the laws of the land are broken? The sloth in ensuring this is done reflects the administration’s negligence, incompetence and lack of being proactive.

“They start hot and sweaty with being the champion of anti-corruption and we are yet to see affirmative action.”
The official also pointed to the fact that NICIL’s  Chief Executive Oficer, Winston Brassington, is yet to face charges for the revelations of corruption under his watch.
The Financial analyst said that these two cases and more give “the distinct impression that government has developed a pattern of condoning illegality as opposed to aggressively fighting it as it had promised during the elections campaign.”
“If they continue in this manner then it will be to their ruin in the next election.”
The analyst said that the sluggishness of the administration in dealing affirmatively with the culprits of the most damning acts of corruption “will be chalked up as another historic tragedy on Guyana’s already damaged reputation.”
Eminent Guyanese scholar, Dr. Fenton Ramsahoye S.C, is also one who fears that Dr. Ashni Singh may very well walk away scot free despite of his financial crimes.
He recalled that the ruling by former Chief Justice (ag), Ian Chang, did not include a single repercussion for the defaulters who illegally spent the State’s monies.

Sir Fenton said that Chang’s ruling should have provided further remedy or relief. He opined that the former Chief Justice Ian Chang could have delivered certain sanctions, apart from only stating that the expenditure was unlawful.
Based on Chang’s ruling, Sir Fenton said that Dr. Singh’s actions constitute a misdemeanor in public office.
The former Attorney General said that the ruling that the expenditure is illegal has “placed Guyana in a national tragedy, simply because the money belonging to the people, has been unlawfully spent, and there is no means of recovering it at the moment and those who committed the offence are without any sanctions.”
The consequence, he said, is that the rule of law has been subverted.
But Chang had told Kaieteur News that it is not his business to deliver disciplinary measures against the defaulters. He said that is the responsibility of the National Assembly.
He had said that the only option is for the APNU+AFC to take the case up in a criminal proceeding, but his job was simply to decide whether the matter was in breach of the Constitution.
Though Chang had ruled that the former government acted unlawfully, he declined to grant the conservatory order sought by the plaintiff, former Opposition Leader David Granger. The order sought to prevent the then PPP government from spending more monies which did not receive Parliamentary approval.
Chang had said that the order was “misconceived and must be dismissed.”
He had advised that a conservatory order must now (in 2015) relate strictly to future constitutional or statutory spending excess and not past excesses.
He had said that if the order was granted it would in effect be an injunction against the then Government spending permitted by the Constitution and the Financial Management and Accountability Act, rather than a conservatory order against non-approved spending for the past financial year, one he noted as “a classic case of the grant of an injunction as a conservatory order.”
Chang had said that for those reasons, the application for an interlocutory conservatory order could not have been granted.

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