THE People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has objected strongly to the Coalition Government’s decision to cut the budget requests of several constitutional agencies, while chiding the move to have the 2017 budget read before year-end.But the administration says the opposition party is up to its old tricks and mischief.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday at the party’s headquarters located on Robb Street, Opposition Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira described Government’s actions as “highly unacceptable.”

Budget estimates for Constitutional Agencies were presented a few weeks ago to the parliamentarians for perusal and ultimate deliberations this Thursday. With support from her party members, Anil Nandlall and Juan Edghill, Teixeira accused Government of attempting to weaken and undermine the constitutional bodies.

She argued that constitutional agencies ought to be provided with the requested amount of finances, noting that the “slashing of the requested budget to less than what was received in 2016 is highly unacceptable.”

The Opposition Chief Whip referenced the reduced budgets for Parliament Office, the Auditor General’s Office, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), the Supreme Court , the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Indigenous People’s Commission to name a few.

“This is a clear case of the abuse of the spirit and letter of the Constitution, which guarantees and protects the independence of these bodies listed in the third schedule,” she stressed. “The Government is once again violating the Constitution by the emasculation of these bodies. How can the Indigenous People’s Commission budget be slashed…; how can you cut the DPP’s and the Supreme courts budget with the issue of backlog of cases and the dire need for more prosecutors; how could one cut the GECOM budget when the Government is well aware of the GECOM decision to hold a new house to house registration in 2017, the last one taking place over 10 years ago?” questioned Teixeira.

The party claimed that the Indigenous People’s Commission’s budget has been cut from $32M to $24M, the Auditor General’s Office’s budget has been reduced by $30M and GECOM’s cut from $5B to $2B.

Contacted for a response, a Government spokesperson indicated that the major recommended reduction is for GECOM, which just come out of Local Government Elections (LGE) and the next LGE is in 2019 and National Elections are next due in 2020.

MISCHIEF
“So there is no need for a large GECOM allocation in 2017 since this is not an election year. This must be known to the PPP; therefore, their protestation is a hollow claim and is seeking to mislead the public with deliberate mischief. A similar contention was made by the Opposition with regard to the 2016 budget, but not a single one of the agencies’ work was compromised or stymied in any way. It is an old argument which the PPP is rehashing. The constitutional agencies present their ideal budget, but this is met within the context of available resources. The Minister of Finance has to consider these budgetary requests and several other submissions and try to allocate based on available revenue,” the Government spokesman said.

Additionally, the parliamentary Opposition labeled the early presentation of the 2017 budget a “serious risk” as it believes the Government will have two budgets running simultaneously.

“By bringing the 2017 budget on November 28, 2016 — whilst the books close on December 31, 2016, the Government in fact will be bringing to the National Assembly a preliminary budget as the 2016 budget would not have been completed as yet. In order for the Government to prepare and publish the budget allocation, it would be unable to present actual figures of expenditure for the years 2016.”

Teixeira finds it “incomprehensible” how Government will spend over $9B requested in Supplementary Financial Paper No.3 of 2016, which will be put before the House on Thursday before the budget is read.

HAMSTRUNG
She said too that the PPP would be hamstrung in the 2017 budget debates as it would be unable to have actual or revised figures from the Government. “This move we believe is intended to obfuscate the challenges in regards to accountability and transparency in the expenditure of the 2016 budget and the three supplementary financial papers. The Government’s dismal record of expenditure, procurement write-offs and deals… will play havoc with accountability issues,” declared the Opposition Chief Whip.

Meanwhile, Edghill, a former minister within the Ministry of Finance under the PPP Administration, questioned the motive behind the allocation of funds for several constitutional agencies that are not currently functioning, including the Office of the Ombudsman, the Public Procurement Commission, the Human Rights Commission and the Public Service Appellate Tribunal.

“How did they determine these figures?” asked Edghill who also questioned the allocation of funds for the Office of the Ombudsman. “The Ombudsman has died… there has been no renaming of an Ombudsman… How can you have a budget?”

Meanwhile, Nandlall agreed with his parliamentary colleagues and noted that the constitutional bodies are protected by the Constitution and from any form of interference from the Executive. “This is so because the role of these bodies is primarily to oversee the functioning of the Government and in any democracy – for that oversight to operate effectively then they must remain separate and apart from the Executive Government and they must be free in the discharge of their functions from any interference with or influence from the Executive.”