Georgetown : The ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civi (PPP/C) chief whip Gail Teixeira slammed the parliamentary opposition A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) calling them irresponsible and reckless for their non approval sections of financial paper number seven of 2011 and number eight of 2011.
Teixeira along with Prime Minister Samuel Hainds and Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh briefed the media late last night at a post-assembly press conference.
Prime Minister Hinds in expressing his disappointment said “We are very disappointed in how things went this afternoon in the House in particular. Four of our heads were not carried in the replenishment of our contingencies fund and we find it very astonishing that monies that were spent in hosting the investiture of the orders of Guyana, that it was disallowed along with expenditure on the swearing in of the new president”.
Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh said the matter of bringing financial papers to the parliament for approval is a process that is governed by applicable law and has the benefit of time honoured parliamentary custom and practice.
“Over the years preceding the tenth parliament and the government’s successive terms in office financial papers have been brought to parliament both to seek original supplementary appropriations and to clear advances made by the contingencies fund for the purposes of replenishing that fund,” Minister Singh said.
Minister Singh believes that the coming together of the opposition to withhold approval of very legitimate expenditure that was incurred in accordance with the law is very alarming.
“What we witnessed today was the coming together of the APNU and the AFC to withhold parliamentary imprimatur being granted to expenditure that was incurred from the contingencies fund in accordance with the law…this expenditure was incurred in the interest of providing goods and services to the people of Guyana,” Minister Singh said.
The Finance Minister believes that it is astonishing to see that approval was withheld after items such as expenditure incurred for the payment of staff of the General Register’s Office (GRO) during the ongoing Registration period as the staff worked overtime to ensure that eligible persons receive their birth certificates so to be qualified to vote.
“At the time that the decision was approved for the payment of the staff of the GRO the Ministry of Home Affairs requested a sum to be paid to the people and it was granted… details have been provided in depth as to who these people are and the hours worked, nevertheless it was still not approved… one has to ask oneself on what purpose was approval withheld on a matter like this,” Minister Singh said.
The Finance Minister believes that the action of the joint parliamentary opposition is anindication of their intentions to frustrate the parliamentary sessions and stymie the continued development of the country, which is a direct threat to tripartite budget and other talks.
Meanwhile Teixeira said “The voting of APNU against expenditure for business in the hinterland locations, a $2.7M electrification related projects saw APNU breaking ranks with AFC as the vote was not lost…the count of the vote was 39 for and 24 against with AFC voting for and APNU voting against…this indicates that the opposition, particularly APNU is saying that they want to see development for Guyana but on the other hand their behaviour contradicts it.
Teixeira also said that it blows one’s mind to think of such reckless behaviour on the part of the opposition as their action indicates explicitly their unwillingness to work collaboratively and cooperatively with government.
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