SILLY SEASON FOR SCANDALS

I HAVE seen a recent news conference by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo in which he scandalously labelled sections of the non-government media as “paid press”.
As the independent media bludgeoned him after he accused President Granger of committing a fraud, he proceeded to cynically name journalists such as Julia Johnson and Gordon Moseley, the latter having been banned from presidential media conferences under the former regime.

As I watched his pathetic performance, I realized that the silly season for scandals has returned, and the image of the foul-mouthed politician came back from a period when Jagdeo himself had invented “cuss-down politics”.

VULTURES AND CARRIONS
That was the period when journalists were labelled as vultures and carrions; when a journalist was assassinated and another jailed for five years after being tried for treason. Then an out-spoken media critic was doused with fresh faeces at a time when no one thought that a journalist could be dismembered, a la Jamal Khashoggi.

The Opposition Leader tried to beat a retreat from his tasteless tirade against the president and the press but soon found himself in another defamatory dead-end. He declared that certain government ministers had travelled overseas “to collect bribes”. He repeated the bare-faced slander, even though it is public information that the named ministers were in Texas on official business.

Hours after those outbursts, one of my daughters shared with me a quotation which I modified, and it goes like this:
A parrot makes lots of noise but cannot fly high;
The eagle does not squawk aloud or cry,
But can touch the sky!

It is clear that the former president is momentarily disoriented by charges against him of misuse of state resources, and the many counts of fraud and sleaze against several of his ministers. But this is no time to play the silly game of catch- up by accusing the sitting President with fraudulent conduct.

PRESIDENT’S LETTERS
It appears that the parrot-like noises were a response to two letters sent by President Granger to Justice James Patterson, Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) on February 25, 2019. The Chairman has admitted that he had received both letters, but that he considered the first to take precedence.

That letter was in response to the Chairman, who is on record as saying:-
(1) The Elections Commission does not have the capability to deliver credible General and Regional Elections (GRE) by March 21, 2019 – just one month away;
(2) Additional funds are needed by GECOM to hold these elections; and
(3) The National Assembly has to make provision for allocation of the necessary funds.
President Granger acted politically correct as a statesman should. He assured the Chairman that (a) the Government of Guyana is committed to doing everything possible to ensure that the Commission is provided with the financial resources needed; and that (b) the Commission has sufficient time to conduct credible elections.

In that letter, the President urged the Commission “to commence preparations for the conduct” of General and Regional Elections.
Under the Guyana Constitution, it is the Elections Commission that has “general direction and supervision” over all elections of members of the National Assembly. This responsibility includes registration of electors and the administrative arrangements for the elections. (See Article 161 (1)(a) of the Constitution of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana).

LEGAL APPEAL
With a legal appeal underway, and for other obvious reasons, all parties have accepted that there could be no elections by March 21, which falls within the Hindu festive celebrations of Phagwah, and is marked as a national holiday.

There are constitutional requirements that call for consultations with both the Elections Commission and the parliamentary opposition and, I would add, the Speaker of the National Assembly.

To hold elections beyond March 21, it requires approval by the National Assembly of a resolution supported by a two-thirds majority. More problematic is the process by which monies could be appropriated for GECOM. Our Constitution provides that no monies could be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund without the recommendation or consent of the Cabinet. (Article 171 (2)(ii) ). If the ruling of the Chief Justice (ag) were to be followed, then Cabinet has been “resigned” effective from December 21, 2018!

It is reasonable to suggest that both the Government and the Opposition are fully aware of this legal conundrum. On its part, the government has approached the Guyana Court of Appeal to stay the Chief Justice’s ruling, primarily as it reaffirmed a date that has since placed Cabinet in a coma. Only a stay could ‘unresigned’ the Cabinet to give consent, in a situation of utmost necessity, to a financial Bill for monies from public funds.

MISLEADING ARGUMENT
The Opposition is wrongly insisting that monies have already been allocated. According to its new legal eagle, Gail Teixeira, a lump sum of $5,371,061,000 was approved by the National Assembly on November 16, 2018. She argued in her characteristic dogmatic, inflexible, Stalinist manner, that GECOM could lawfully use up the lump sum to prepare for, and hold elections by March 21, 2019.

That argument is deliberately misleading. The lump sum was not voted for the holding of elections. I refer to a Stabroek News article on 28th November, 2018 under the headline, “Gov’t budgets $2.9B for 2020 poll preparations”. It quoted the finance minister as saying that of the $5.4 billion for GECOM, “2.9 will be for the preparation of the 2020 General and Regional elections”. No mention was made that that sum or any other sums were for holding of elections.

It may be useful to share the decision on point from the Australian case, Brown v West [1990] regarding appropriations authorised by the Constitution. The High Court held that an appropriation “must designate the purpose or purposes for which the money appropriated might be expended”. That principle was stated by Latham C.J: “…there cannot be appropriations in blank, appropriations for no designated purpose, merely authorizing expenditure with no reference to purpose.”

There is much learning in this case that suggests that while no item by item debate is allowed on estimates for constitutional agencies, (i) no money can be taken out of the Consolidated Fund except under a distinct authorization from Parliament itself; and (ii) once money has been appropriated, it restricts the expenditure to the particular purpose for which authorization to withdraw it has been given.

SOBER STATESMANSHIP
Both Jagdeo and Teixeira, as Guyanese would say, are barking up the wrong tree. They have to move far away from that culture of fiscal lawlessness that had led the PPP government to spend billions of taxpayers’ money without the approval of parliament, and also in defiance of objections by the National Assembly.

That was the reason for the motion of no-confidence against the minority PPP government in 2014. It cannot now be the recipe to lawfully secure funds for holding fresh elections after a national consensus on a date beyond March 21.
More than any time before, sober statesmanship, not scandal-mongering, is needed.

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