Law approved to fast-track budget for constitutional agencies

Dec 31, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – The Fiscal Management and Accountability Amendment (FMAA) Bill presented by Senior Minister within the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, was approved in the National Assembly, late Wednesday night during a sitting of the Twelfth Parliament.

Senior Minister within the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh.

The Bill was approved by a majority vote of the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and thus was void of input from the members of A Partnership for National Unity +Alliance For Change (APNU + AFC) Coalition who walked out of the House following a ruckus over the Natural Resource Fund Bill.
Prior to the vote to approve the new FMAA Bill, Minister Singh made a final presentation on the Bill which, is expected to strengthen and expedite the budget process for Constitutional Agencies and simultaneously preserve the independence of those agencies.
According to Dr. Singh, the FMAA Bill also includes amendments which will ensure accountability and sets out the practice and procedure to which these Constitutional Agencies must conform in the management of their subventions for the efficient discharge of their functions.
For example, he said the Bill amends the FMAA Act Chapter 73:02 for the purpose of ‘prescribing the manner in which budgets are approved and withdrawals are made from the Consolidated Fund in respect of Constitutional Agencies’.
It also includes an amendment to Section 15 of the FMAA Act to require that an annual budget be proposed to include a motion in compliance with article 218 and 222 A of the Constitution. Another amendment seeks to amend section 40 e of the Audit Act to provide for the presentation of the Audit Office Budget.
In presenting the motion to amend the Bill last month, Dr. Singh emphasised that the proposed alterations to the important legislation will increase the efficiency and effectiveness as it relates to the presentation and consideration of the budget for Constitutional Agencies.
In its current amended form, Dr. Singh said that the FMAA resulted in the budget process being unnecessarily long.
According to him, the current method lays out a two-stage process whereby the budget of the constitutional agencies would be brought to the National Assembly, considered and approved.
In his previous presentation on the Bill, Dr. Singh noted that the 2021 amendment sought to remove the aforementioned two-stage process and replace it with a single, summarised process of submitting and considering budgets for Guyana’s constitutional agencies.
In his presentation, Dr. Singh said, that certain fiscal responsibilities are best handled by the Executive.
This, he had explained, is appropriately demonstrated in Article 171 of the Constitution, which states that certain matters relating to public finances, including the levying of taxes, can only be brought before the House signified by a Minister.
The amendments were as a consequence of a 2015 amendment to the FMAA by the APNU+AFC during its tenure, whereby constitutional agencies’ budgets were required to be sent to the National Assembly in advance of the submission of the rest of the National Budget. This two-stage process resulted in a fragmented and inefficient process for consideration of the National Budget and denied the Parliament an opportunity to view and consider the budget in a comprehensive manner.