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FM
Former Member

Failure to gazette new Gov’t Ministries stalls budget considerations

WITH a number of challenges raised by the Opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) about a number of new Government Ministries included in the Budget Estimates for 2015, the Government has no choice but to gazette those Ministries, thus certifying them as budget agencies recognized by law. Speaker of the National Assembly Dr Barton Scotland addressed the House last evening on the issue after a meeting with representatives from both the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Government, and the Opposition PPP/C.


Coming out of that meeting, it was agreed between the two sides that a number of new agencies would have to be gazetted before they can be considered in the Budgetary Estimates for the Committee of Supply of the National Assembly, which first sat yesterday.


The Ministries of the Presidency, Communities, Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Public Infrastructure, Social Protection, Public Security, Public Health, Tourism, and Business, are now to be included under the Third Schedule of the Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) Act, which lists the budget agencies.


These new ministries were made effective when the new Administration came into office following the May 11 election.


“An order to this effect will be issued by the Minister of Finance and shall be gazetted to take effect from the 22nd August, 2015,” the Speaker told the House. This move will ensure a smooth transition into the consideration for estimates under the new agencies, which were listed in the 2015 Budget even though they had not yet been legally listed as budget agencies.


Aside from this, the Speaker noted that a number of constitutional agencies had been placed under Government Ministries. This was incorrect, since those very agencies were given financial independence based on the amendments to the Constitution, as well as the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act under the David Granger Administration.


Those agencies include the Chamber of the Director of Public Prosecutions; the Judicial, Public, Police, and Teaching Service Commissions; the Public Service Appellate Tribunal; the Public Procurement Commission; Office of the Ombudsman; Guyana Elections Commission; Supreme Court of the Judicature; Parliament Office; the Rights Commissions; and the Ethnic Relations Commission.


Those agencies previously were catered for under a table in the estimates titled “Subsidies and Contributions to Local Organisations,” but will now be classified under “Local Organisation only (strictly speaking local Organisations) and Subventions to Constitutional Agencies.”


The Speaker lauded the collective efforts of both sides to work to a compromise. “This takes us quite a far way forward, and we hope that we can build on it, in a matter which we think matters here this evening and beyond,” he said.


He explained further that the constitutional agencies will form part of the considerations. The Speaker expressed hopes that all the estimates that were to be considered for the Monday session would be concluded on that day.


Even with these challenges, the Committee of Supply of the National Assembly, which approves budgetary estimates, will continue to sit until Wednesday, without extension, as stipulated by a Government motion.

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Aside from this, the Speaker noted that a number of constitutional agencies had been placed under Government Ministries. This was incorrect, since those very agencies were given financial independence based on the amendments to the Constitution, as well as the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act under the David Granger Administration.


Those agencies include the Chamber of the Director of Public Prosecutions; the Judicial, Public, Police, and Teaching Service Commissions; the Public Service Appellate Tribunal; the Public Procurement Commission; Office of the Ombudsman; Guyana Elections Commission; Supreme Court of the Judicature; Parliament Office; the Rights Commissions; and the Ethnic Relations Commission.

 

Failure to gazette new Gov’t Ministries stalls budget considerations, August 24, 2015, Source

Gross ineptness of the current government to ensure that the process is proper and in accordance of the laws.

FM
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:
Aside from this, the Speaker noted that a number of constitutional agencies had been placed under Government Ministries. This was incorrect, since those very agencies were given financial independence based on the amendments to the Constitution, as well as the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act under the David Granger Administration.


Those agencies include the Chamber of the Director of Public Prosecutions; the Judicial, Public, Police, and Teaching Service Commissions; the Public Service Appellate Tribunal; the Public Procurement Commission; Office of the Ombudsman; Guyana Elections Commission; Supreme Court of the Judicature; Parliament Office; the Rights Commissions; and the Ethnic Relations Commission.

 

Failure to gazette new Gov’t Ministries stalls budget considerations, August 24, 2015, Source

Gross ineptness of the current government to ensure that the process is proper and in accordance of the laws.

 

PNC is clueless.

FM
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:

Speaker Barton Scotland

Speaker Barton Scotland

In excusable especially with all them lawyers in Office and the Budget is prepared by people who has been there since 1989.

 

Some head must roll for this.  Kamla in Trinidad would have fired someone.

FM

Gov’t flayed over budget estimates

By Staff Writer On August 25, 2015 @ 5:30 am In Local News

Consideration of the 2015 budget estimates was snagged in hours of controversy yesterday after the opposition PPP/C argued that the government had violated its own recently passed laws relative to constitutional agencies and the new ministries which were created following the May general elections.

Amid high drama and a flurry of meetings between the two sides, the arguments by the opposition severely delayed what was supposed to be a 9 am start to assuage concerns over the constricting of the consideration of estimates to three days. At 8 pm yesterday, the Chairman of the Committee of Supply and Speaker, Barton Scotland made an announcement for the way forward in an exhausting day that also saw separate press conferences by the PPP/C and the APNU+AFC government to present their sides.

Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira during one of several interventions yesterday in Parliament. [Keno George photo) Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira during one of several interventions yesterday in Parliament. (Keno George photo)

Scotland’s announcement said that the Committee of Supply will today commence consideration of the 2015 Budget Estimates as the Finance Ministry will immediately issue an order to be gazetted and to take effect from August 22, 2015 allowing for a modification of the Schedule of the Fiscal Management and Accountability (FMAA) (Amendment) Act 2015 to add the new ministries. It will also place all the Constitutional Agencies on a single table.

After a four-hour delay, the opposition proceeded in the afternoon with questioning the government over various line item allocations in the budget. All the while, members of the PPP/C aggressively opposed the ongoing considerations as they stated that the treatment of the Constitutional Agencies was unconstitutional and in violation of the government’s own FMAA (Amendment) Act of 2015.

Scotland’s announcement last night said that that on behalf of the opposition, MP and former Attorney General, Anil Nandlall had written a letter to him expressing concern over the present construct of the 2015 Budgetary Estimates. After a meeting facilitated by the Speaker between the Government and the Opposition, it “was agreed to amend the estimates as follows, Constitutional Bodies which are currently found in various parts of the Estimates will be relocated. All of the Constitutional Agencies will be placed in a single table in which their allocations will be reflected as a lump sum allocation of both Current and Capital Expenditures,” He stated.

The Chairman noted that the table formerly titled subsidies and contributions to local organisations will now be disaggregated into local organisations only and subventions to Constitutional Agencies.

The constitutional agencies which were affected by the government blunder were the Chamber of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Judicial Service Commission, the Public Service Commission, the Police Service Commission, the Teaching Service Commission, the Public Service Appellate Tribunal, the Public Procurement Commission, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Guyana Elections Commission, the Supreme Court of Judicature, the Parliament Office, the Rights Commissions and the Ethnic Relations Commission.

Further, the FMMA will be modified to add the Ministry of the Presidency, Ministry of Communities, Ministry of Indigenous People’s Affairs, Ministry of Public Infrastructure, Ministry of Social Protection, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Business. While the house considered the estimates for the Office of the President it was not until consideration began for the Ministry of the Presidency that members of the PPP/C contested moving further as the Ministry does not legally exist as yet.

Nandlall in a press briefing along with Chief Whip Gail Teixeira and Juan Edghill after midday yesterday said that the government had to admit its errors and take immediate action to fix the Estimates or the entire budget would need to be scrapped. He had stated in his letter to Scotland that due to the violation of the two acts both passed in the 11th Parliament “portions of the Estimates or the Estimates in their entirety may be unlawful, null, void, and of no effect.”

He said that the party’s contention lay in the fact that the schedule was not amended and that the new ministries named by the Granger administration were simply not a part of the architecture and were outside of the legal framework. Teixeira laced into the government and the Finance Minister, Winton Jordan calling the work and the presentation of the 2015 Budget Estimates incompetent.

She noted that the Constitution (Amendment) Act and the FMAA were both assented to by President David Granger a month prior to the August 10 Budget Presentation. She said it was ridiculous that the government was unable to be compliant with the first two pieces of legalisation proposed and passed by it in the 11th Parliament. She said there was more than ample time to apply the FMAA and add the plethora of new ministries.

Teixeira said that it was all the more alarming that the government showcased such negligence considering that the FMAA was first proposed in 2013 by then Shadow Finance Minister, now Foreign Affairs Minister, Carl Greenidge who had lobbied extensively for the financial autonomy of a variety of constitutional agencies. She said that given the history of the legislation it was an unbelievable level of “incompetence” that would then allow for the Finance Minister to be so careless in placing constitutional bodies under a variety of headings when a provision was made specifically for these entities to be separated.

Scotland had told the Committee of Supply that by 16:00hrs yesterday the issue would be addressed. However that time came and went and it was not until after 20:00hrs that an announcement was read by him as to what came out of the lengthy meeting between the two sides.

In a press briefing immediately after the PPP/C’s yesterday afternoon, Greenidge admitted to the government mistakes but tried to downplay the issue noting that it was a far cry from a constitutional crisis. He said that the opposition informed the government that a couple of the constitutional agencies had not been “fully shown in the estimates in the manner that had been set out in the Constitutional Amendment Bill and more importantly   the second Fiscal Management and Accountability Act”. Greenidge said that government has since decided that it will make the amendment and reflect same in a short resolution as had been done with the previous administration last year when “they had continued yet again to fail to meet the requirements of the constitution”.

Asked how the government could have made such a blunder, Greenidge acknowledged that they knew what had been proposed and the amendments which had been previously passed. “However as is usual with these things life is a little more complicated as it might otherwise appear   and in the course of preparing the tables themselves there were a couple of places where they weren’t properly reflected”, he said.

Moving forward during the Committee of Supply it was determined that there were no ministers of social cohesion, citizenship or natural resources and in fact no ministries either as they comprise only departments in the Ministry of the Presidency.

Up to press time last night, the two sides were considering heads under various ministries.


Article printed from Stabroek News: http://www.stabroeknews.com

URL to article: http://www.stabroeknews.com/20...er-budget-estimates/

 

Copyright © 2015 Stabroek News. All rights reserved.

FM
Originally Posted by KishanB:
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:

Speaker Barton Scotland

Speaker Barton Scotland

In excusable especially with all them lawyers in Office and the Budget is prepared by people who has been there since 1989.

 

Some head must roll for this.  Kamla in Trinidad would have fired someone.

I agree - head must roll

FM
Originally Posted by yuji22:
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:
Aside from this, the Speaker noted that a number of constitutional agencies had been placed under Government Ministries. This was incorrect, since those very agencies were given financial independence based on the amendments to the Constitution, as well as the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act under the David Granger Administration.


Those agencies include the Chamber of the Director of Public Prosecutions; the Judicial, Public, Police, and Teaching Service Commissions; the Public Service Appellate Tribunal; the Public Procurement Commission; Office of the Ombudsman; Guyana Elections Commission; Supreme Court of the Judicature; Parliament Office; the Rights Commissions; and the Ethnic Relations Commission.

 

Failure to gazette new Gov’t Ministries stalls budget considerations, August 24, 2015, Source

Gross ineptness of the current government to ensure that the process is proper and in accordance of the laws.

 

PNC is clueless.

Correct Yuji.

FM

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