LOCAL Government Minister Ganga Persaud yesterday flayed A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU) Member of Parliament, Ronald Bulkan, over his reported failure to adequately understand the budgetary process involving allocations to the various regions.
The House resolved itself into the Committee of Supply yesterday to resume consideration of the 2013 Budgetary Expenditure, at which point in time Bulkan objected, citing an alleged violation of the constitution.
In fact, Bulkan proposed to the House that “we are being asked to participate in a process that is highly questionable and may be violative of the constitution.”
Bulkan suggested that the process used to prepare the estimates for the regional authorities excluded the various Regional Chairmen, specifically for Regions 4 and 8.
He said that the programme’s objective entails consultations with the RDCs on the implementation of policy.
Bulkan proffered also that the development plans must be determined by the various agencies, but according to Persaud, this had been observed.
“Sometimes it is said that a little bit of knowledge is extremely dangerous…a little bit of learning can be extremely dangerous, too,” was the retort by the Local Government Minister.
According to Persaud, the process that was undertaken for preparation and completion of budgetary estimates for 2013 involved each of the 10 Regional Administrations.
He suggested that the process used for the Local Government Ministry is not dissimilar to the processes that were undertaken by every other budget agency that falls under central government.
| “All of us would like to have everything and fix all the problems, but we should ask ourselves if in any country in the world, we will have all the resources so that in a 12-month budget year we can resource everything and implement everything.” |
According to Persaud, each of the agencies would have prepared its proposals, which, in turn, are submitted to the Ministry of Finance.
He said that the Finance Minister would at this stage assess the macro-national environment based on resources and developmental plans, and the allocation of resources would be done in keeping with the developmental thrust of the country.
According to Persaud, the APNU member is seeking to have the regional administration’s proposals taken on board “lock stock and barrel”
Persaud said that this is a very unfortunate state of affairs.
He explained that this is the case, given “that at this level of this House, we can bring such simplicity to such a complex issue.”
According to the minister, every department in each of the administrations would have commenced preparing its budget for 2013 in July of 2012, and that process culminated with the “estimates in front of us.”
Persaud suggested that Bulkan, in future, “spend a little more time and talk with the heads of departments,” in the hope that the various complexities are not confused on his part.
He said that anyone who is knowledgeable about budget preparation would concede that process commences with proposals
“All of us would like to have everything and fix all the problems; but we should ask ourselves if, in any country in the world, we will have all the resources, so that in a 12-month budget year, we can resource everything and implement everything.”
The House subsequently approved the estimates, current and capital, for Regions 4, 5, and 6.
