Speaker preparing for parliamentary storm over 2013 Budget : - soliciting legal opinions, reviewing Chief Justice’s recent budget-cuts ruling

Written by Gary Eleazar, Tuesday, 19 March 2013 21:17, Source

SPEAKER of the National Assembly, Mr. Raphael Trotman, is preparing for a parliamentary storm in the coming sessions with the 2013 Budget presentation scheduled for Monday.

“The nation requires a budget,” he said, as he urged that the coming sittings should not be viewed as a “gloom and doom situation.”

Trotman expressed his views during an exclusive interview with the Guyana Chronicle yesterday.

He said, too, “Yes, there are going to be grey clouds, you are going to have some thunder, some lightning, some rain, but, at the end of it, we will have sunlight.”

The Speaker pointed out that, in order to reach the eventual proverbial sunlight, “in my view we must pass through this storm.”

The Government and the combined Opposition have publicly taken two extremely polarised positions with regard the Parliament and the Budget.

According to Trotman, he is, currently, soliciting legal opinions from other lawyers with regard to the recent ruling by Acting Chief Justice Ian Chang.

Alluding to the events of last year, when the combined Opposition managed to cut more than $20 billion from the National Estimates, he said his opinion was similar to that of the majority in the House.

MAKE CHANGES

This position, he said, is that the House does have the ability to approve, disapprove and make changes to the proposals, providing that an increase is not proposed.
He suggested that this is a standard position understood by Members of Parliament (MPs) throughout the years.

“I have noted the ruling of the Chief Justice,” he acknowledged, but maintained that, being Speaker, as is the case of the majority of the House, he differs with that of the Chief Justice.

Trotman reminded that it is a matter he had ruled on last year, affirming that the House has the power to approve or disapprove the National Expenditures.

He recalled also that he has taken a firm position that, while the Court can interpret for the National Assembly, it cannot compel the House.

“We set our own rules and I am very certain about that,” he insisted.

Trotman said, nonetheless, he has invited all sides of the House to start a process of speaking outside of the failed attempts thus far.

The Speaker said he will be making available, to the Government and Opposition, the facilities of the National Assembly, for meetings in a bid to broker agreements.

He said the talks should have begun ever since last year, but “it isn’t too late to still get the process underway.”

Trotman said it is regrettable that the discussions that did commence did not gain the required traction, but “nothing is wrong with us meeting to work something in the national interest.”

    
The Speaker said for those who may not wish to have meetings at Office of the President, as had been the case during the last year’s budget, the various Committee rooms and parliamentary resources can and will be made available.

He is adamant that the nation must have a budget. “We must put the nation first and the country must have a budget.”

THE CHARADE

This past week, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), in its most recent pronouncement on the preparations for the 2013 Budget, charged that the charade conducted by the Minister of Finance can only mean that it was his intention, all along, that the 2013 National Budget would have to be dealt with on the floor of the National Assembly.

APNU has said that, perhaps, “the Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, is convinced that he could, safely, shelter under the umbrella of the provisional ruling by the Chief Justice.”

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr. Anil Nandlall, subsequently stated that the Chief Justice was clear in his decision that the preparation and presenting of the Budget is the sole job of the Executive.

Nandlall said, for the Opposition to attempt to cut the Budget or substitute expenditure, would be attempting to subvert the role of the Executive.

 
He said, contrary to what the judge had ruled, such action by the Opposition would, essentially, be trying to prepare the nation’s budget by the combined opposition.

*** PULL QUOTE: “Yes, there are going to be grey clouds, you are going to have some thunder, some lightning, some rain, but, at the end of it, we will have sunlight.”  - Speaker Raphael Trotman

*** PULL QUOTE: “We must put the nation first and the country must have a budget.” – Trotman