ATTORNEY-GENERAL and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall on Wednesday gave assurance that all spending being undertaken by the Government of Guyana in 2015 is in keeping with the constitutional provisions of Article 219 (1) and the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act of Guyana. 

This position seems to be supported by noted attorney-at-law and chartered accountant Christopher Ram in an article posted on his blog site last weekend.
Ram, in his article while discussing the spending by Government for 2015, pointed to Article 219 (1) where he stated: “The Constitution grants the Parliament the power to make provision for the Minister of Finance to authorise the withdrawal of moneys from the Consolidated Fund to “meet expenditure necessary to carry on the services of the Government of Guyana.”
Responding to questions posed by the Guyana Chronicle following the concerns raised about contracts being undertaken and approved, Minister Nandlall said: “The Constitution permits spending. Once it is necessary to carry out the services of the Government of Guyana, whether it be for the provision of security, water … or the Office of the Leader of the Opposition, all the facilities which forms part of this amalgam called services of the Government of Guyana.

“It is incapable of any precise definition. The laws of Guyana contain a compendium of statutory responsibilities which devolve upon the Government of Guyana that is so numerous that it is incapable of any precise definition.”
Expanding on his statement, the Minister explained that if “the Government of Guyana has been providing X number of services for the last 20 years, on what basis will you say now that is not a normal service of the Government of Guyana.”
Pointing to the constitution, Minister Nandlall said he is unprepared to read into the words of the document any undue restrictions. It reads: “For the purpose of meeting expenditure necessary to carry on the normal services of Guyana: I don’t read into that any undue restriction in relation to capital and non-capital. If it is part of the normal services of the Government of Guyana the constitution authorises expenditure but you cannot exceed 1/12 of the previous year,” he said.
Referring to the FMAA passed by the National Assembly in 2003, Ram in his article noted that the Act gives the Minister the power to issue month-to-month drawing rights sufficient to fund the ongoing delivery of normal services of Government in accordance with Article 219(1) of the Constitution.
The Attorney-General has insisted that he is unprepared to read anything else into the words of the constitution.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon in his post-Cabinet press briefing last week announced that Cabinet had issued its no-objection to a number of contracts at its meetings on December 23 and 30, 2014 which, because there was no press briefings following those meetings, the media, inter alia, the nation was not informed.
He therefore used the opportunity of the first press briefing for the year to so inform the nation. These contracts included US$169,000 and GYD$20M for the purchase of sensitive material and Duracell batteries for GECOM for election purposes, US$270,000 for the relocation of the Instrument Landing System/Distance Measuring Equipment for the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri, among others.

(By Raymon Cummings)