APNU signals Court action over ‘illegally’ spent $4.5B

…law quoted by Finance Minister not applicable post Budget – Greenidge

By Gary Eleazar

Carl Greenidge, APNU’s Shadow Minister of Finance

While the Alliance for Change (AFC) is finalizing its statement to be submitted to the Guyana Police Force for action to be taken against Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh for allegedly spending $4.5B illegally, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) has signaled its intention to approach the Courts over the very expenditure.

This view was made known yesterday when Shadow Finance Minister, Carl Greenidge, appeared on the ‘Nation Watch’ television program and objected to Dr Singh’s reliance on Article 218 (3B) of the Constitution to spend in excess of $4.5B.

According to Greenidge, the Minister is misconstruing the Constitution of Guyana.

He said that Article 218 (3B) is only applicable when there is no Budget (Appropriations Act) in place.

According to Greenidge, Dr Singh would have been able to justifiably expend the money and rely on that section of the Constitution prior to April, but when the House approved a Budget, that Act forbade him from making any expenditure utilizing that course of action.

As a result, APNU is of the position that the Minister did in fact spend monies illegally, hence the move to the court.

The Finance Minister hosted a press engagement this past week and in justifying the legitimacy of the $4.5B expenditure, pointed to Article 218 (3B) of the Guyana Constitution.

That Article reads: “If in respect of any financial year it is found—that any moneys have been expended for any purpose in excess of the amount appropriated for that purpose by the Appropriation Act or for a purpose for which no amount has been appropriated by that Act, a supplementary estimate, or as the case may be, a Statement of Excess showing the sums required or spent shall be laid before the Assembly by the Minister responsible for finance or any other Minister designated by the President.”

Greenidge is adamant however that the President and the Minister tried to mislead the public “primarily by selective reference to Articles of the Constitution.”

According Greenidge, for the Minister to cite Article 218 is “utterly unacceptable.”

He said that spending before and after the Budget was passed cannot be both legal, adding that a Statement of Excess can only be resorted to, in the absence of the House passing an Appropriation Act, commonly referred to as the budget.

He said that when a government enters a new year and the need for expenditure arises for which there is no money and the Budget is still to be passed, a process can be triggered and the Minister can subsequently submit a Statement of Excess to cover the period when authorization was not there.

Greenidge insists that once a Budget has been passed, then the Finance Minister cannot access the Consolidated Fund via Article 218 (3B).

“We have no doubt that a court is going to recognize that this is a flagrant breach of a decision taken by the House…We will take the matter up in the court with a view to having the court pronounce that these expenditure were unauthorized and illegal.”

He said that APNU will also be looking to have the Minister be refrained from making any similar expenditure in future.

The $4.5B spent by Dr Ashni Singh and documented in the Statement of Excess, which he tabled, represents just $4.5B of the $37B that was voted down by the Opposition when it considered the 2014 Budget.

Dr Singh in justifying the expenditure had chided the Opposition over the stance they have adopted, saying that a Statement of Excess is not unknown to them and that they have already voted on three such documents, approving 60 per cent of the funds covered under the documents between 2012 to present.

The first was submitted in 2012 asking for $1.6B and the Opposition approved $1B of that amount, which was a bailout/subsidy to meet the cost of the fuel bill of the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL). The second Statement of Excess was also tabled in 2012 asking for $204M but this was also rejected. The last one was to the tune of $3.4B, and $2B found favour with the Opposition, $1.7B of which was again for the GPL.

According to Dr Singh, the fact that the Opposition approved 58.9 per cent of the $5.1B gives rise to their acceptance of the legitimacy of the Constitutional Provision allowing the expenditure by the Finance Minister from the Consolidated Fund.

Dr Singh was adamant that even if it was a case that only one item was approved, “the fact of the matter is that the Parliament recognized the instrument of a Statement of Excess and approved it, even if it is one item.”