AG refutes Trotman’s claim that Constitutional agencies budget were approved illegally

Sep 16, 2020 News

Guyana’s Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, Anil Nandlall, yesterday rejected claims by Opposition Member of Parliament, Raphael Trotman, that the approved $11.2 billion budget for Constitutional Agencies was a statutory breach as the requisite officials were not yet appointed.

Attorney General, Anil Nandlall

Trotman, during his contribution to the National Budget debate this week, said the new administration “committed multiple illegalities or statutory breaches when it purported to pass the budgets for the Constitutional Agencies in clear violation of the precepts of the Financial Management and Accountability (Amendment) Act of 2015.”
The Opposition MP said that the Act clearly stated that the procedure be adopted by the Finance Minister, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Clerk of the National Assembly and the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
Supporting this contention, he pointed out that there was no gazetted Finance Minister, no elected Speaker and no Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
Nandlall, however, rejected this, deeming Trotman’s contentions as “absolute falsehood.”
The AG explained that back in 2015 by Act No. 4 of 2015, the APNU+AFC administration amended the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act which adjusted the way that Constitutional Agencies budgets are to be presented in the National Assembly.
By that amendment, he said, their budgets are to be presented separate and apart from the National Budget estimates. Additionally, they are also to be submitted by the Accounting Officers of

Opposition MP, Raphael Trotman

these Constitutional Agencies and copies sent to the Minister of Finance.
“We complied with that process in accordance with the letter and spirit of the amendment promulgated by the APNU+AFC in 2015,” Nandlall told the media.
Trotman had also noted that the law speaks of providing “sufficient time” for Parliamentary representatives to consider the estimates presented.
But Nandlall pointed out that by that very amendment, budgetary allocations for Constitutional Agencies are directly to be charged from the Consolidated Fund and they are to be disbursed in a “lump sum manner” therefore excluding any possibility of Parliamentary interrogation and scrutiny.
“So even if they were in the assembly,” Nandlall added “because they absented themselves, but even if they were present, they could not have subjected those budgetary estimates to any form of interrogation or scrutiny because that is what the amendment said.”
Further, he said that: “There was no basis for a National Assembly intervention, so Mr. Trotman was completely wrong in his contention that there was some irregular process or illegality.”