FINANCE MINISTER Dr. Ashni Singh Thursday tabled Financial Paper One and Two of 2011, totalling more than $1.5B and $12.1B respectively. The majority of the items listed in the two papers are for funds that were cut from the 2012 national estimates. Paper One is seeking approval for subventions for the Government Information Agency (GINA) and the National Communications Network (NCN), whose budgets were slashed to $1 each.
Approval is also being sought for the payment of wages and salaries of contracted workers at the Office of the President, expenditure incurred at the Office of Climate Change (OCC), and subsidies for the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), State Planning Secretariat, Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the Guyana Power and Light Inc. to meet its fuel bill.
During the consideration of the estimates, the Opposition used their one-seat majority to cut the budgetary allocations of several agencies by over $20B, many to a mere dollar; and these supplementary papers seek to restore funds to the affected agencies.
Additionally, approval is being sought for provisions for the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security to meet additional costs associated with the increase in old age pension from $8,100 to $10,000 per month.
Under the Office of the Prime Minister, $5.3B is being sought for the acquisition of a 26 megawatt power plant. Approval for additional funds is being sought for the Agriculture Ministry’s Export Diversification and Conservancy Adaptation Projects, Georgetown to Lethem road, Education for All- Fast Track Initiative (AFA-FTI), Community Roads Improvement Project (CRIP), Georgetown Sanitation Programme, water rehabilitation works in Linden, Specialty Hospital, Citizen Security Programme (CSP) and the Justice Improvement Programme.
Government has had to resort to the High Court to reverse the budget cuts; and on July 18, Acting Chief Justice, Ian Chang in his preliminary ruling, stated that the National Assembly has no power under the constitution to reduce the National Estimates when they are presented for approval.
That ruling paved the way for the Finance Minister to exercise his statutory and constitutional powers to withdraw from the Consolidated and/or the Contingency Funds, for the purpose of funding agencies where he feels that there has been an insufficient allocation made.
In the height of the budget cuts, the notion of supplementary provisions was bandied around by the Opposition as a panacea; however, when supplementary Paper Nine was brought to the House in June, they voted against it.