– Singh
Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh yesterday said that the government is being guided by the ruling by acting Chief Justice Ian Chang in the budget case and the relevant laws, when asked if the administration is spending funds that were not approved by the National Assembly.
Dr Singh was responding to a question by APNU’s Carl Greenidge, who cited a newspaper report that quoted Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon as saying that monies that were not approved by the House had been made available to various recipients.
In September, Luncheon had revealed that despite the cutting of subventions from the national budget by the opposition earlier in the year, contract workers at the Office of the President and employees at other affected state entities have been paid.
“Would the minister be good enough to verify the statements? And, if true, indicate what category and sums have been paid?” Greenidge asked.
In response, Dr Singh said he could not speak for the accuracy of the statement attributed to Dr Luncheon but noted that government is “guided by the ruling” of the Chief Justice on the matter of the budget cuts and guided also by applicable laws, including the Constitution and other statutes “that govern the incurrence of public expenditure.”
Saying that he was “a little challenged,” Greenidge questioned whether the minister was saying that expenditure that was not budgeted for—not approved by the House—was undertaken and that he was also not in a position to indicate whether that was case.
However, before Singh could respond Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman pointed out that the question was predicated on a statement purportedly made by Dr Luncheon but the minister said he could not verify the statement, which was a fair answer. But, he added, the issue gives rise to a substantive question and he invited Greenidge to put a substantive question to the minister in writing, detailing what he wanted to be answered.
“I believe that the issue of public expenditure is urgent and public and important. However, as I said to Mr Greenidge, the Honourable Member, perhaps the question that he seeks to elicit [an] answer for could best be structured in a written question and directly pointed to the minister, not perhaps using newspaper reports,” Trotman said, following an objection by government’s Chief Whip Gail Teixeira.
He noted that if in fact there are some disbursements he would have to see if in fact they come within the parameters of the ruling of the Chief Justice and there would have to be details of the amounts and what agencies.
“But I do believe it is a matter of public importance,” Trotman said.
On July 18, Justice Chang ruled that the National Assembly did not have the power to cut the budget but said that the court could not restore the funding sought by government, except for allocations to the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) to perform its constitutional duties.
Justice Chang, in an interim ruling on the ex-parte application by Attorney General Anil Nandlall for an order to allow Singh to be permitted to withdraw monies from the Consolidated Fund to restore the funding, upheld the budget passed by the opposition-controlled National Assembly in April.
“In summary, the court finds that the act of the National Assembly in cutting or reducing the estimates of expenditure laid by the Minister of Finance under Article 218 of the Constitution was outside its constitutional remit. Nevertheless, the Appropriation Bill laid before and passed by the National Assembly and to which the President assented was not unconstitutional. Since the Constitution (and Parliament) have reposed power to take remedial action against the consequences of those cuts or reduction in the Minister of Finance and not in the court, no interim relief relating thereto can be ordered by the court,” the acting Chief Justice had found in a 34-page ruling.
The government, through Nandlall, filed the court action, in which it asked for an order vacating and/or setting aside the budget reduction as well as an interim order to allow Singh to make advances from the Consolidated Fund to restore the original allocations for the agencies affected by the cuts.
