Georgetown: For the first time in two decades the ruling administration in Guyana did not get the approval sought for monies spent in advance.
This time around they were seeking approval for $5.7B spent in the final three months of last year.
This has left the Government in “uncharted waters,” according to the Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh.
‘Tumultuous’ would be the only word to describe yesterday’s debates in the National Assembly which went up until 22:00hrs. At issue were two financial papers for the Supplementary Provisions.
The matter ended in a stalemate as the Bill approving the expenditure could not be voted on.
It was ruled that the House will reconvene on March 15, after the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Deborah Backer, who presided over yesterday’s sitting, sought advice on the way forward.
The stalemate came about after the opposition voted against several of the provisions in the first financial paper, which was for some $2.2B.
Point man on financial matters for A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Carl Greenidge, then sought to have Finance Minister Dr. Singh withdraw the second one which was for another $3.4B.
But the presiding Deputy Speaker sought to have the matter deferred until a later date at which point she would have received advice.
The developments in the House prompted the Government to host an immediate press briefing condemning the actions of the opposition, saying that there could be no reasonable explanations for voting against some of the advances taken from the Contingencies Fund.
The point was made that while the tripartite talks will continue, the shadow of what transpired in the House last evening will be lingering.
Dr. Ashni Singh said that there was a plethora of distortions of the law on the part of the Opposition. There could be no other reasonable explanation other than “political grandstanding” and “flexing of muscles.”
When asked what happens to the accounting books, given that the monies, for which approval was being sought, was already spent, Dr. Singh said that the laws did not cater for this development and that the Government is now operating in uncharted territory. The way forward will have to be studied, he said.
All of the Government speakers at the subsequent press briefing expressed disappointment and astonishment at what had transpired.
From the get-go, as the scrutiny of the expenditure commenced in the National Assembly yesterday, the Opposition line of questioning pointed to a deficit in adequate planning as it relates to the expenditure of the nation’s resources.
The back-and-forth reached a point in the House where former long time People’s Progressive Party Executive Member, Moses Nagamootoo, now a member of the Alliance for Change said, “It bothers me that we are being asked to replenish money already spent contrary to the law.”
The violations of the law that was alluded to by many of the Opposition Speakers, was that the advances were not made in keeping with the criteria as was set out by the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act of 2003.
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