$32M approved for Office of the Leader of the Opposition
…as Parliament plans on spending $7M to purchase 1 photocopying machine
Feb 08, 2022 -- Source - Kaieteur News Online -- https://www.kaieteurnewsonline...hotocopying-machine/
Kaieteur News – Preceded by at least one opposition Member of Parliament (MP) getting confused with the figures and another being schooled on how to read a table of figures outlined in the Budget Estimates, MPs yesterday approved some $32M for the Office of the Leader of the Opposition even it was revealed that the National Assembly plans on spending $7M to purchase a photocopying machine.
Added to this, the House remained unclear as to whether Local Government Elections will be held this year despite the utterances of the substantive Minister for the portfolio.
600 SECONDS
With just 600 seconds (10 minutes) to query the allocations, the 65 Members of the House approved the allocations for the various Constitutional agencies with members of the public learning in the process about the generosity of the Ministry of Finance by allocating for some agencies more money than had been requested.
During the consideration of the figures allocated for the Parliament Office, Opposition Chief Whip, Christopher Jones sought to illicit confirmation of the allocation for the Office of the Leader of the Opposition.
That Office is a Constitutional post currently vacant with the resignation of Joseph Harmon.
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira, gave the confirmation that the Office had been allocated some $27M for its current expenditure and another $5M for capital works.
When questioned on the total $45M allocation remaining for the Parliament Office by coalition MP Ganesh Mahipaul, the Minister at this point indicated that apart from cameras, furniture, electronic gates and some other things, the Parliament Office was also looking to purchase a photocopying machine for some $7M.
With regard the Audit Office of Guyana, it has in the Budget for this year $1B for its recurrent expenditure including a significant amount for overseas travel which was queried by coalition Member, Jermaine Figueira.
NRF AUDITS
To this end, Minister Teixeira reminded that the Auditor General will have to hand over chairmanship of the Caribbean Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (CAROSAI) in Aruba later this year and as such a seven-member delegation has been identified.
“CAROSAI is a very important body for setting the standards in the region and those are the standards we use for audits in Guyana,” according to Minister Teixeira.
With regard the contracting out of audits, former Minister in the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) administration, David Patterson was told this is not paid for by the Audit Office but rather the agency being audited. As such, no money is allocated for the contracting out of audits.
With the advent of the Natural Resources Fund and the mandate passed to the Audit Office, Patterson during yesterday’s session sought to find out what provisions have been made for the office to examine money brought into the NRF.
According to Minister Teixeira, the Audit Office has been preparing to track oil revenue going into NRF and pointed out that “the very law creating the fund has identified at section 31 that an external audit of account shall be undertaken annually by the Auditor General who will engage international audit firm.”
PAPERLESS
She was adamant however, that the Audit Office has been building its capacity to audit exploration and production being undertaken in the industry. Guyana has already missed its deadline for the Audit of the Liza I operations in addition to pre-contract costs.
The House learnt too that the Audit Office has, for the past seven years, been stuck in phase one of its transition towards a more paperless operations.
This information was supplied to the House when Opposition MP Mahipaul sought clarity on a $66.4M for the office listed under the heading ‘other goods and services’.
To this end, Teixeira confirmed that the money was in part to pay for some 30 software licences as part of this transition to go paperless.
Moreover, Mahipaul queried, “in view of us using teammate (a software) to go paperless, why is it we are not seeing a change in materials equipment and supplies, shouldn’t the expenses be significantly reduced?”
The minister responded by saying “many times paperless is not paperless” and pointed to parliament which is itself attempting to move towards a more paperless system but as is evident during the proceedings, swamped in reams of paperwork.
Meanwhile, the Police, Public Service and Teaching Service Commissions’ allocations were all approved unchallenged.
NEW VOTERS LIST
With regard the scrutiny of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and its $4B current allocation, Patterson sought to elicit information on the preparation of the Local Government Elections, the preparation of a New Voters List, Identification Cards and the inclusion of some 22,000 young person’s that had been left off the list or would now qualify.
To this end, Minister Teixeira used the occasion to indicate to the House that it is GECOM that would have to come up with a plan and timeline for the elections.
She did indicate to the House that on the matter of local government elections there was no specific allocation but provisions had been made including for the hiring of up to 12,000 temporary staff for such an election.
According to Teixeira, GECOM has already stated that it is preparing a roadmap which will go to the commission and the commission will then make determination on when it is ready to commence, at which time the President would have to be informed
She noted that “as far as I know, they have not reached that stage to say what quarter of the year” they would be ready to commence with Local Government elections.
Nonetheless, monies have been made available for training, additional staff, voter education and other election related activities.
During the consideration of the Estimates, the House learnt too that this year, a significant amount of money has been allocated to the Judiciary for the construction of a number of new courts and the rehabilitation of others, in addition to greater use of technology.
Members of the House were told that there is even provision in this year’s Budget for the installation of elevators at the High Court in Georgetown as well as the Sub-Registries at Suddie and Berbice.
INFORM THE PUBLIC
With the Minister providing the House with a complete breakdown of new courts and other capital works to be had, Jones, the Opposition Chief Whip, complained to the Speaker of the National Assembly that his colleagues had only been given 600 seconds to scrutinise the figures and accused Minister Teixeira of seeking to drag out the time.
She responded by reminding that the proceedings were being streamed live to the public and that they have a right to know, as such, “I will also use my prerogative to inform the public.”
The House also learnt of the “generosity” of the Ministry of Finance which handed a number of the constitutional agencies more monies than had been requested.
Opposition Member Mahipaul indicated to the House that the figures, as presented by the minister, were confusing him.
This, since in the allocations for salary there had been significant increases. Teixeira initially responded by pointing to the seven percent increase paid to workers last year that had to be sustained.
Confronted with the fact that the increase had already been reflected in the revised amount, Minister Teixeira reminded the House that Constitutional Agencies receive their money in a block and that further it was out of the generosity of the Ministry that additional monies had been provided and as such additional staff could be hired if needed.
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These are constitutional bodies and they receive a lump sum, when they get their lump sum they have the right,” according to Teixeira, under the relevant laws to realign money as the need arises and quipped “I hope the House would not begrudge the Human Rights Commission an additional $4M.”
To this end, she was reminded that the Office of the Leader of the Opposition had requested an increase in budgetary allocations but generosity was not extended in this direction.
At the end of the first session of the House’s Committee of Supply, the Budgetary Allocations for each of the Constitutional Agencies had been approved in the National Assembly.
These include: Parliament Office, the Audit Office of Guyana, the Public and Police Service Commissions, the Teaching Service Commission, GECOM, the Supreme Court, Public Prosecutions, Office of the Ombudsman, the Public Service Appellate Tribunal, the Ethnic Relations Commission, the Judicial Service Commission, the Rights Commissions of Guyana and the Public Procurement Commission.