Dear Editor,
We refer to an article in KN captioned ‘Govt has no obligation to transfer money to Consolidated Fund, says Brassington.‘ Might we remind anyone of this mindset that the constitution is the supreme law of the land. In times of conflict in the interpretation of the supremacy of the law, the constitution completely overrules any other legislation. We in the AFC want Guyanese to know that the minority PPP is contravening the letter and spirit of the law by hiding over $50 billion of the people’s money in NICIL and other accounts instead of putting it in the Consolidated Fund. We see a civil case in the courts in the making to expose and then regularize this illegality.
Section 216 of the constitution clearly outlines the appropriate treatment for these funds:
“All revenues or other moneys raised or received by Guyana (not being revenues or other moneys that are payable, by or under an Act of Parliament, into some other fund established for any specific purpose or that may, by or under such an Act, be retained by the authority that received them for the purpose of defraying the expenses of that authority) shall be paid into and form one Consolidated Fund.”
This clause makes it absolutely clear that revenues from these agencies can only be retained on their books for the purpose of defraying their annual expenses. Is NICIL’s annual expense $50 billion? It is safe to say that the answer is a resounding “no.” So why this secretive treatment for these substantial funds? Only the PPP has the answer as to why they are prepared to violate the supreme law of the land.
We want to put on the record that the AFC will not rest as an organization until all of the people’s monies are emptied out of these secret accounts and transferred into the Consolidated Fund. The custodians of the Consolidated Fund are the people’s representatives in Parliament, including the PPP MPs. There-fore, it is difficult to follow why the PPP is not interested in greater accountability and transparency in their financial conduct in this new political dispensation.
Yours faithfully,
Asquith Rose
Sasenarine Singh
