More reasons for the no confidence vote to move forward.

A no-confidence motion will short-circuit all that legal mumbo jumbo.

The court system in Guyana is operating in 19th century mode, with speed an unfamiliar concept to the judiciary.

Parliament to probe Finance Minister’s excess spending

- Govt. mulls options

Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman, has ruled that the spending of $4.5B by Finance Minister Dr. Ashni

House Speaker
Raphael Trotman

Singh without the approval of the National Assembly has raised sufficiently serious questions to be inquired into by the Committee of Privileges.
The Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, has since responded, saying that it is for the courts to decide on constitutional matters and not a Committee of Parliament.
Nandlall who has responded to the Speaker’s ruling on his social media ‘facebook’ page says that the Article of the Constitution that the Finance Minister is relying on regarding the expenditure is an exception to the section that primarily deals with expenditure from the Consolidated Fund.
Article 217 of the Constitution provides that no monies shall be expended from the Consolidated Fund except by way of an Appropriation Act, commonly referred to as the Budget, but Article 218 (3) (B) provides for the Minister to make an expenditure and subsequently provide the National Assembly with a Statement of Excess.
It has been argued that the Minister illegally spent the money and the Alliance for Change (AFC) has lodged a formal complaint with the Guyana Police Force and the Director of Public Prosecutions over what the party deems illegal expenditure to the tune of $4.5B.
Nandlall, in response to the ruling by the Speaker, says that while he is bound to be guided by Trotman’s decision, “I do not consider myself restrained from expressing a view on the ruling, even a critical and outspoken one.”
According to Nandlall, the issue raised in the Motion by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU)’s Carl Greenidge, to have the Minister committed to a Committee of Privileges, is purely a legal one.
“It concerns the interpretation of several provisions of the Constitution, including Articles 217 and 218…Article 217 essentially provides when, and in what circumstances, monies can be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund.”
According to Nandlall, Article 218 provides for monies to be drawn from the Consolidated Fund outside of the strictures imposed by Article 217.
“In short, Article 218 is but an exception to Article 217…In other words, Article 217 sets out the general rule and Article 218, the exceptions to that rule.”
He contends that this is precisely why the wording of Article 218 succeeds the words of Article 217.
Nandlall argues that the very two articles were examined by the Chief Justice (ag), Ian Chang in the Budget Cut case and interpreted along the same vein he is suggesting.
“The Chief Justice did so in both his interim as well as his final rulings…The Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition and all the lawyers in the National Assembly for the Opposition participated in this case, either as parties or as attorneys at law…I presume therefore that they have read the two rulings. Indeed they have appealed.”

Finance Minister
Dr. Ashni Singh

Nandlall has since argued that what has been referred to the Privileges Committee by the Speaker is hardly a matter of “privilege,” rather it is a matter of law and constitutional interpretation.
“The simple truth is, that, a Member of the House cannot act in conformity with the Constitution and at the same time violate a privilege…Constitutional supremacy, which is the cornerstone upon which our constitutional democracy rests, mandates that the glories of the common law, statute law, by-laws, standing orders, rules and regulations and indeed administrative policies, must bend and bow to the provisions of the Constitution.”
According to Nandlall, under the doctrine of separation of powers, the Court, and not the Privileges Committee of the National Assembly, or any other forum for that matter, is exclusively vested with the constitutional responsibility of interpreting and determining matters of law, whenever there is any controversy.
He said (Speaker) Trotman has fallen into error in determining that there was a serious question of privilege and transmitting same to the Privileges Committee.
Nandlall, who is the legal advisor to the Government, is of the opinion that the Privileges Committee is without jurisdiction to deal with the matter for several reasons.
He argues that the persons who will constitute the Committee will come from the membership of political parties that have an interest to serve and “have indeed said publicly that the Minister has violated the Constitution and the law; in short they have made up their minds.”
Nandlall opined that it will be impossible for the Minister to get a fair hearing at the Committee.
He said that the persons who will sit on this Committee are simply unqualified to determine the legal issues which will arise.
He said too that, significantly, the very issue is sub judice, and is the subject of an appeal pending before the Guyana Court of Appeal, and therefore ought not to be the subject of any consideration, either in the National Assembly as a whole, or in any of its Committees.
As a result, Nandlall said that over the next few days, Government will be considering its options, and a resort to a legal challenge of this ruling is one of them.

Using Article 218 (3) as permission to illegally withdraw public funds is farcical

DEAR EDITOR,
Despite a lack of legal training, I consider myself like many other Guyanese to be reasonably intelligent and capable of understanding what is written in the Constitution of Guyana. I am therefore quite clear on the meaning of the following Article of our Constitution:
217 (1) No moneys shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund except—
a) to meet expenditure that is charged upon the Fund by this Constitution or by any other Act of Parliament; or
b) where the issue of those moneys has been authorised by an Appropriation Act; or
c) where the issue of those moneys has been authorised under Article 219.
What this tells me is that there are only three provisions in the Constitution for withdrawing money from the Consolidated Fund. The first two are self-explanatory, while the third (c) refers to another Article (219) of the Constitution which simply provides for expenditures necessary for carrying on the business of Government during the period before the approval of the budget or up to the end of April of each year, whichever comes first.
Another Article (220) of the Constitution provides for the establishment of a Contingencies Fund, and for advances to be made from the Fund, and for the fund to be replenished. Article 220 is made specific by the Fiscal Management and Accountability (FMA) Act of 2003, Article 41(4) of which limits withdrawals from the fund to two percent of the estimated annual expenditure of the previous fiscal year.
Since the Contingencies Fund is a sub-fund of the Consolidated Fund and ultimately requires a withdrawal from the Consolidated Fund for its establishment, this withdrawal is provided for in Article 217(1)(a) above by an Act of Parliament (FMA Act). A retroactive appropriation by the National Assembly allows the Contingencies Fund to be replenished by withdrawing from the Consolidated Fund under Article 217(1)(b). This has to be so in order to conform to the very explicit requirements of Article 217(1) of the Constitution which contains the only allowable provisions for withdrawals from the Consolidated Fund.
It is with this understanding that I wish to comment on the response by President Donald Ramotar to the formal notification by Leader of the Alliance for Change, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan of the party’s intention to pursue the use of a vote of confidence against the Government of Guyana.
In his letter to Mr. Ramjattan, the President emphatically defends the unauthorized withdrawals from this country’s Consolidated Fund by his Minister of Finance by stating:
Article 218 (3) is unambiguous in allowing for expenditure to be incurred in the absence, or in excess of available appropriations as approved in the extant Appropriations Act. That Article reads thus:
“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 statement of excess showing the amounts…spent shall be laid before the National Assembly by the Minister responsible for Finance…”
The President seems to have completely missed the point of Article 218 (3) (b) of our Constitution which he quotes above as the constitutional basis on which his Minister is permitted to spend public moneys that have not been appropriated.  Nowhere in that Article is there a permission to spend money in excess of amounts appropriated or for purposes for which no amounts have been appropriated.
Instead this Article prescribes what is to be done if 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.
In other words, if it is found that the primary constitutional provision (Article 217 (1)) governing withdrawals from the Consolidated Fund has been breached, Article 218 spells out the process to be followed in order to bring all withdrawals back under the authority of the National Assembly. This in no way exonerates the unlawful spending.
An appropriate analogy can be found in Section 63(1) of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act which states:
If in any case owing to the presence of a motor vehicle on the road an accident occurs resulting in injury or death… the driver of any such vehicle shall-
a) immediately stop his vehicle at the scene of the accident
b) give his name, address and the registration number of his vehicle and exhibit his driver’s licence to………
The existence of this legal provision does not authorize a driver to go and crash his or her vehicle into someone else’s. It simply sets out a legal obligation to be followed in the event that such an incident occurs. In no way does it legitimize the act of causing the accident.
The President also writes:
I resolutely maintain that the actions taken by my government about which you complain are expressly authorised and permitted by both the letter and spirit of the constitution. Indeed, you yourself participated in this identical process in the years 2012 and 2013 by supporting Financial Papers 1 of 2012 and 1 of 2013.
When it comes to public spending, the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act of 2003 contains the relevant laws, and Article 16 of that Act states: “There shall be no expenditure of public moneys except in accordance with Article 217 of the Constitution”. The margin note to this Article reads: “No expenditure without appropriation” and captures the spirit of the Constitution in a way that clearly eludes the President.
He also seems to believe that having retroactively appropriated some of the unauthorized spending in 2012 and 2013, the National Assembly forfeits the right to put its foot down now that it has become clear that his Government will no longer recognize its authority to authorize all public spending.
The unprecedented grey area created by the Chief Justice’s fuzzy provisional ruling and the long-delayed final decision may have contributed to an uncertainty over how the National Assembly should deal with the unauthorized spending. The President should not misinterpret this to mean that the opposition did not have a serious problem with what was done by his Minister of Finance in the previous years.
Further, the President posits:
The Honourable Chief Justice, Mr. Ian Chang in his 18 July, 2012 ruling on the budget cuts case is equally unambiguous. He states thus:
“The application of article 218(3) is premised on a finding of insufficiency of an appropriated amount for a stated purpose or of no amount for a purpose for which a need has arisen and which has received no appropriation it is not this court to substitute itself for the Minister of Finance. It is he who must make the perquisite “finding” under Article 218(3) of the constitution…”
The President must be blessed with an incredibly high IQ if he finds the above to be an unambiguous permission for his Minister of Finance to spend without parliamentary approval. Once again I draw, not on any legal training, but on basic common sense when I suggest that the part of Article 218(3) quoted to by the President in his excerpt from the Chief Justice’s ruling is perhaps not the same part of Article 218 (3) which he quoted earlier in his letter. Article 218 (3) describes two separate circumstances, designated (a) and (b) respectively, under which the Minister of Finance is required to lay before the National Assembly, either a supplementary estimate or a statement of excess.
The Article first quoted by the President in defence of the unauthorized spending is 218(3)(b) which is premised on a “finding” that “moneys have been expended for any purpose in excess of the amount appropriated…”.  His quote from the Chief Justice’s ruling clearly refers to Article 218(3)(a) which describes a situation where it is found -
that the amount appropriated by the Appropriation Act for any purpose is insufficient or that a need has arisen for expenditure for a purpose for which no amount has been appropriated by that Act
It is this part of Article 218(3) that is premised on a “finding of insufficiency of an appropriated amount for a stated purpose ….” as quoted from the CJ’s ruling.  Unfortunately this is not applicable to what has occurred in this case and has no bearing on the unauthorized spending of his Minister.
It should also be pointed out that the Contingencies Fund for this year would be capped at G$4.16B and any advances from this fund requires the Minister to lay before the National Assembly at its next sitting a supplementary estimate for the purposes of authorizing the replenishing of the fund.
Financial Paper # 1 of 2014 introduced in the National Assembly last month is a statement of excess and therefore not applicable to withdrawals from the Contingencies Fund, which some are suggesting might have been misused by the Minister in his attempt to bypass the National Assembly. It would be good for the public to know the current status of the Contingencies Fund. This is everyone’s business.
As a layperson I can find no constitutional basis for the Minister’s withdrawals of G$4.5B outside of this year’s Appropriation Act. The use of Article 218 (3) as permission to do so is farcical. Anyone looking at Article 218 in its entirety will quickly see that it sets out how authorization should be obtained for withdrawals from the Consolidated Fund and offers no guidance on making those withdrawals.
The AFC has made public the fact that it has lodged a formal complaint with the Guyana Police Force over these illegal withdrawals from the nation’s consolidated fund. It falls entirely within the purview of the Police to investigate such a complaint and to document the results of their investigation so that it can be determined if criminal charges are appropriate.
We expect that the Police Force will give this matter the attention it deserves and not be guided by the attitudes of our Minister of Finance and our Attorney General whose referrals to this matter as frivolous and vexatious are in line with previously demonstrated attitudes to breaches of the laws of this country.
Dominic Gaskin

Is jail then freighten jail, ashneww and OH Nandalala.

President disappointed with Speaker’s ruling on Finance Minister

July 26, 2014 12:39 pmCategory: latest newsA+ / A-

 

By Tracey Khan – Drakes

President Donald Ramotar during the press conference. [iNews' Photo]

Simply a personal opinion, similar to others who simply offer a view.

Gist of the matter.

Proceed with it and stop the babbling.

The Honourable Speaker is usually blinded to see these issues.

The speaker is not only blind, he's bias.

Khemraj Ramjattan and Kathy Hughes are not on trial here, and that dunce Ramotar should know that, as a matter of fact Donald Duck knows nothing, as his Government became the laughing stock of the Caribbean when they tried to push the Birth Certificate Issue to the populace in Guyana, the courts had to ruled it null and void......a stupidity on behalf of the Guyana Government.

Will not be surprised, if the speaker rules him 'out of order' in other words telling him go 'shut up and go sit down'

‘Illegally’ spent $4.5B…Nandlall attempting to usurp powers of Parliament – Greenidge

Following the comments of Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, over the decision by Speaker of the House, Raphael Trotman, on the alleged illegal expenditure of in excess of $4.5B, Shadow Minister, Carl Greenidge is contending that, at this stage the question of separation of powers should indeed be pursued by the ruling regime.

Carl Greenidge

“It is a principle they routinely respect in the breach,” said Greenidge. According to the opposition Member of Parliament, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime, the AG, a Cabinet member, sits in the House and participates in the examination and passage of legislation. He purports to vet such legislation when it is passed, although for an obvious reason there is no constitutional provision for his interference at that point. “He also purports to pronounce on the constitutionality of the legislation and advises the Presidency not to assent to properly passed legislation; simply because it is politically inconvenient…He sits in the legislature and is in bed with the Executive!  Where is the separation?” According to Greenidge, the Courts are supposed to be separate from the Legislature but like the Executive, they are now being invited by the AG to usurp the functions of the legislature. Greenidge argues that the Constitution reserves, for the National Assembly only, the right to set its rules and procedures including the disciplining of its members, MPs. “The call for the Chief Justice to intervene suggests that he can exclusively or jointly discipline Members of Parliament. It is yet another example of the erosion of the separation of powers.” Greenidge said, too, that if a Minister refuses to adhere to a decision of which he was a part and which he took to the President for enactment, “how can he refuse to implement it without bringing the actions of the Assembly into disrepute ad ridicule. That is the basis on which the motion of censure was laid.” He recalled that even as the Assembly declined to provide monies for the projects and entities engaged in unprofessional and often unconstitutional activities, the Minister was illegally authorizing the expenditure. “He continued after the decision…The Assembly took a decision, the Minister acted contrary to that decision.” According to Greenidge, determining the content and size of the Appropriation Act is not the responsibility of the Courts and while the interpretation of the Act is their responsibility, the indiscipline and contempt the Minister showed the Assembly is not. “Contrary to the AG’s assertion, the censure is not about the interpretation of the Act but about yet another act of contempt the Minister has shown to the decisions of the Assembly.” He said that the specious legal arguments provided by an Attorney General who confuses the games to which he has been accustomed to playing as a criminal lawyer, with his role as an AG who is supposed to provide a strict interpretation of the law and the Constitution for the benefit of the Cabinet and ultimately for the national benefit. “How much longer must a country which has produced at least three of the region’s top five lawyers of all time, put up with this type of AG…It is not that long ago when he was falsely claiming that the photocopying of  copyrighted material from textbooks was legally defensible.” Greenidge recalled too, that it is a matter of weeks since the Caribbean Court of Justice told him that he could not justify maintaining a discriminatory tax against the importers of containers by pleading malfeasance on the part of the Legislature or worse yet, the members of the Opposition in it. “The CCJ rejected the pleas and arguments of the PPP regime as having no merit whatsoever… Yet, here we go again.” Greenidge said that in dealing with constitutional matters, the Courts in their wisdom have allocated all the very important Constitutional cases to date to the same judge whose pronouncements on several of the matters, have been so worded that the government has been able to continue to pursue unhampered actions which conflict with any commonsense and historical reading of the rights of the Legislature. Greenidge said that those rulings have made the Courts in general and its capacity the subject of widespread ridicule, possibly unfairly. “In responding positively to the AG’s most recent threatened action, the Courts will be sowing more seeds for the destruction of the last vestiges of the separation of powers and the gutting of democracy in Guyana.” According to Greenidge, what the AG and PPP will seek to argue before the Courts as constituting the so-called executive function, is a breach of the separation of powers and part of the process of dictatorial governance, executive lawlessness and a cover for the rampant corruption which has characterized and haunted Guyana for the last 10 to 20 years.

Contrary to warped thinking and expressions, Khemraj Ramjattan and Kathy Hughes are also the focus on this and other related issues.

all of this is now irrelevant, Asni can tief 10 billions now, the PNC cannot do Sh!t.  They are finished.  They are now a PO PO PARTY with a PO PO LEADER.