Chairman of the Alliance for Change (AFC) Nigel Hughes says that the party will consider other avenues to effect change to the state broadcaster NCN and the Government Information Agency (GINA), given that the subvention cuts seem to have done little to reform programming.
With regard to the operations of the two entities, he said he could not comment on this, since he has not seen a report on where operations at NCN and GINA have been changed or varied owing to the subvention cuts. But in terms of the change that the opposition had wanted to see, he said he was not satisfied with this. “There’s no apparent change in the way they are operating, there’s no apparent change in balance…” he said adding that the entities have also not moved to address the opposition’s concerns.
According to Hughes, “we are going to actively consider other avenues” where they can affect the change they want to see. Quizzed on these other avenues, he said that this will be revealed at the appropriate time.
Last week, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, revealed that despite the cutting of their subventions from the national budget by the opposition, contract workers at the Office of the President and employees at other affected state entities, including NCN and GINA, have been paid.
“Contingency funds were approved and funds were made available belatedly but still made available to meet the wages and salaries of the contract workers (at OP),” he said had in response to a question from Stabroek News at his post-cabinet media briefing. “No one lost their jobs. I cannot say if employees left while waiting,” he added.
Observers have said that despite cuts to the subventions for GINA and NCN, both have continued to function in the same way as they had before. No comment could be obtained from the main opposition APNU yesterday because Stabroek News was told that leader David Granger was out of town and chairman, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine is overseas.
In the National Assembly last month, the opposition again voted against an allocation of $211.5 million for NCN and GINA. It also voted down the sum of $22.6 million for expenditure on wages and salaries for contracted employees under Office of the President Presidential Advisory and other services.
The government had taken the opposition to court and Luncheon said on Wednesday that the $1 that was approved by the opposition for the various agencies was totally inconsistent with the constitutional provision as ruled by the Chief Justice. “The Constitution says for a maximum of four months every year in the absence of a budget, the Finance Minister could withdraw from the Contingency Fund, wages and salaries whatever it takes to run the government,” he said while explaining how money was found to pay the workers.
“The provision of a $1, the Chief Justice ruled was clearly inconsistent with that provision in the law so the Finance Minister did what the law provided for and made the money available to meet those expenditures,” he said. It is unclear if these workers will be paid for the rest of the year.
In April, the opposition effected over $20 billion in cuts from the budget, citing a lack of transparency and accountability in the explanations for the allocations. The government later moved to restore the amounts through an action in the High Court. Although finding that the National Assembly did not have the power to cut the budget, acting Chief Justice Ian Chang in July, in an interim ruling, said the court could not restore the funds, except for allocations to the Ethnic Relations Commission, which is a constitutional agency and entitled to draw directly from the Consolidated Fund.
