Despite the limited impact from the budget cuts last year, the opposition will cut expenditures that are “unlawful” or do not conform to financial regulations, Leader of the Opposition David Granger says.
He said that the opposition also plans to appeal a ruling by acting Chief Justice Ian Chang that the National Assembly does not have the power to cut the budget. Following the 2012 budget cuts by the Opposition, Attorney General Anil Nandlall had moved to the courts and Justice Chang in an interim ruling said that the National Assembly did not have the power to cut the budget but the court could not restore the funding sought by government, except for allocations to the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) which is a constitutional agency and entitled to draw directly from the Consolidated Fund.
“We intend to appeal the ruling because we feel it is quite useless to have an opposition in the National Assembly which can’t do anything,” Granger told Stabroek News yesterday. “We intend to pursue the legal remedy for our complaints,” he said.
Last April, the opposition effected $20 billion in cuts from the budget, citing a lack of transparency and accountability in the explanations for the allocations. Among those affected by the cuts were contract workers at the Office of the President and employees at other affected state entities, who were all later paid and apparently continue to be paid.
Despite protests by some of these workers that they faced losing their jobs as a result of the contracts, none appear to have been laid off.
The opposition had also said that they wanted to see certain changes such as transparency at agencies such as NCN and GINA before the funds are restored to the entities but the agencies continue to operate as they had before.
With the 2013 budget due to be presented to the National Assembly before the end of March in accordance with the constitution, Granger said yesterday that despite the little change, the opposition will continue to scrutinize the budget as they had before and exercise their “legitimate right” to make cuts.
He pointed out that the opposition has only had two consultations with the government on this year’s budget thus far and they were not satisfied.
Although they received some documents, the consultations were not of sufficient frequency or depth, he said. On Saturday, Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh told the Sunday Stabroek that a key meeting between the government and opposition on the budget is yet to take place because APNU’s Carl Greenidge is yet to get back to him.
Granger said that they intend to scrutinize the budget very carefully for any unlawful expenditure or ones that do not conform to financial regulations. “We are going to do what we have to do,” said Granger adding that the Speaker will rule. Further, he said, they also intend to bring a motion to the National Assembly to sanction the Minister of Finance if he disburses money without the approval of the House.
