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Can the Finance Minister answer Nandlall’s question?

Feb 15, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,
I am grateful that the Minister of Finance found time in his closing address of the Budget debates of 2016 to focus on my presentation in those debates. The Minister of Finance was kind enough to point out that I was wrong in my contention that 28 billion dollars was standing in the Lotto funds. He informed the Nation that only 500 million dollars is in that account. I admit that I was wrong. What I intended to say was that there exists, approximately, a total of 28 billion dollars in all the extra budgetary funds and statutory agencies within the State’s financial architecture. More fundamentally, however, the Minister completely ignored the gravamen of my contention.
In my presentation, I recalled the relentless agitation of the APNU / AFC , while they were in the Opposition, for these monies to be transferred to the Consolidated Fund ; I reiterated the arguments which they advanced – that it was ‘’ unlawful and unconstitutional’’ for these monies to be kept out of the Consolidated Fund, and that they were so kept for ‘’ corrupt purposes.’’ I drew attention to a Motion laid in the National Assembly during the Tenth Parliament, calling upon the then Government to forthwith deposit those monies into the Consolidated Fund ; I referred to legal proceedings instituted in the High Court by Desmond Trotman to, inter alia, achieve this objective. The extra budgetary funds / statutory agencies, to which I referred included the Lotto funds, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, the Guyana Gold Board, the Guyana Forestry Commission, the Central Housing and Planning Authority, among others.
While the Minister informed us that after a transfer of a billion dollars, 500 million dollars still remain in the Lotto funds, he failed to address my main concern which is, why these billions which were “ unlawfully” and “ unconstitutionally” kept separate and apart from the Consolidated Fund by the PPP/C Gov’t, were not and are not at the moment deposited in that fund after nine months of being in Government. Am I, and the Nation, to, therefore, conclude that these monies are kept away from the Consolidated Fund for “corrupt purposes”?
Anil Nandlall
MP (PPP-C)
Former Attorney-General

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