Govt. uses majority to cutback scrutiny of specific Budget allocations

Feb 06, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The Business Sub-Committee of the National Assembly, which has as its majority government Members of Parliament (MPs), on Friday last voted to cut back on the time and days allotted for consideration of the specific allocations for spending this year in the Estimates for 2022.

Dr. Ashni Singh in his Budget presentation said, “the governance architecture of his Government is based firmly on inclusivity, participation, transparency, accountability, and the rule of law. It is grounded in the concept and policy thrust of a One Guyana.”

The Budget is approved through a number of stages with the outcome being the passage of an Appropriations Act, approving the outlined expenditure—presented to the House by Senior Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh—for withdrawal from the Consolidated Fund, oftentimes referred to as the coffers or treasury.
On Wednesday January 26, Dr. Singh initiated the first process in the National Assembly, when he presented the Estimates, along with a more than five hours long presentation, outlining why the members of the political opposition should support the outlined expenditures.
This past week saw the subsequent stage being completed, as MPs delivered their contributions to the debate, adumbrating support or downright condemnation.
The next stage of the budgetary approval process will commence on Monday, when the National Assembly resolves itself into a Committee of Supply, in order to consider every single allocation in the Budget, whether it is $20,000 for stationary or $20B for a gas-to-shore Project.
With this year’s budget being funded in part with oil resource—$126B —coming from the Natural Resources Fund (NRF), at least two government ministers had promised that this week would be the time for opposition MPs, to solicit the information they had been calling for. Namely, what specific projects will be funded with the oil money?
The government appears to have reneged on its commitment to transparency, at least, according to opposition sources.
Dr. Singh in his Budget presentation said, the governance architecture of his Government is based firmly on inclusivity, participation, transparency and accountability, and the rule of law. “It is grounded in the concept and policy thrust of a One Guyana,” he had asserted.
This publication has since been reliably informed, however, that the level of scrutiny expected would not be allowed this year, since government has used its majority in the Business Sub-Committee of Parliament, to cut back on the days and amount of time allotted to scrutinise this year’s $552.9B Budget in detail.
Kaieteur News understand that the Committee met twice on Friday – this follows on four similar meetings the previous day—all aimed at coming to a “compromise, on the time and days allotted for the consideration of the estimates which will commence on Monday,” the source related.
This publication was told that government had submitted its proposal, which reduced the number of days for consideration of the estimates from five to four.
Additionally, as it relates to the allocations for Constitutional Agencies, while 30 minutes was allotted last year for each agency, this year that has been slashed to 10 minutes only.
“Even in the meeting this (Friday) afternoon, we were negotiating and we even push to move it from 10 minutes to 15 minutes and the government bluntly refused a five minutes to provide us with that opportunity,” an opposition member told this publication.
As such, it was noted that this position runs counter to the utterances of President Irfaan Ali and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, who are “on record as saying that the place in which accountability and transparency could be had, is in the parliament via the parliamentarians asking questions in the House.”
The source, as such told Kaieteur News, “…here it is the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) has used its majority in the business subcommittee and voted in its entirety their proposal which speaks to only four days for the consideration of estimates.”

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