Governing party moving to Constitutional Court against Opposition
THE governing party in the National Assembly will move to engage the Constitutional Court for a ruling on the manner in which the Committee of Supply is dealing with the consideration of Financial Papers Numbers 7 and 8 of 2011. The disclosure was made by Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon at his weekly post-Cabinet media briefing yesterday at Office of the President, Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, Georgetown.
He said Cabinet concluded, at its March 6 meeting, that the collaboration between the parliamentary parties in opposition to the governing party was leading to grossly unprincipled actions.

Luncheon said Cabinet’s specific attention was focused on the betrayal of parliamentary norms and the abuse of constitutional provisions in the decisions by the combined opposition on proportionality of seats of the two parties in the parliamentary committees.
“This was reflected in the rulings made at the Committee of Selection,” he said.
Luncheon said Cabinet further contended that the abandonment and betrayal of parliamentary norms were also evident in decisions made by the Committee of Supply that considered Financial Papers 7 and 8.

He said Cabinet will be confronting the Opposition wrongdoings in Parliament by way of a motion and to move to the Constitutional Court to question the constitutionality of the action in the House.
The HPS, at a recent press conference, had said Cabinet recognised the ill-advised, not well thought out intrigues of the alliance that played out in the National Assembly at its last sitting.
He said mature judgement and enhanced changes were called for in dealing with the way forward.

Disappointment
Luncheon said Government had registered its disappointment and astonishment, from time to time, at the events that unfolded during the last sitting of the National Assembly on February 16, which saw the Opposition’s refusal to approve four aspects in Financial Paper Number 7 for supplementary provisions on Current and Capital Estimates.

In addition, the combined Opposition also requested that Financial Paper Number 8 be amended and resubmitted to the House, to allow for more transparency, since according to Opposition members, the details of the project were not specified.

Monies that were spent for the hosting the investiture for the orders of Guyana last year, were  disallowed along with expenditure on the swearing-in of the new President, which, when taken together,  formed the bulk of the expenditure on that year. 

The ruling Party had explained that the matter of bringing financial papers before the Parliament for approval is a process that is governed by applicable law and that has the benefit of an honoured parliamentary custom, practised over the years preceding the Tenth Parliament during the Government’s successive terms in office.

Financial papers have been brought before the Parliament both to seek original supplementary appropriations and clear advances made in the Contingency Fund and for the purpose of replenishing these funds.