With his administration’s extra-budgetary spending becoming a lightning rod for an AFC-led push for a vote of no-confidence against his government, President Donald Ramotar yesterday defended the expenditure saying that the opposition can have the court decide whether it is constitutional or not.
In 2012 and 2013 “we did exactly the same thing and the opposition voted for many of them in the National Assembly and it is totally within the Constitution. Everything we do, we do it within the Constitution,” Ramotar asserted during a hastily-called news conference at State House yesterday. He said the opposition is peddling inaccuracies and noting its stance that the spending is unconstitutional, questioned why this issue has arisen. “Why are they plugging this line that it is unconstitutional when they themselves participated in this process in 2012 and 2013 and they didn’t see it as being unconstitutional then? Why are they now branding it unconstitutional?” he questioned.
Government has spent more than $4.5 billion of the $37.4 billion cut from this year’s $220 billion national budget and Minister of Finance Ashni Singh on June 19, tabled Financial Paper 1 of 2014 seeking the approval of the House for the extra-budgetary spending. However, this quickly attracted the ire of the main opposition APNU as well as the AFC with both parties saying on
