In the face of a court ruling that the National Assem-bly’s power is limited to either giving or withholding approval of the budget estimates, the opposition parties have signalled that for Budget 2014, they will not approve line items that do not have their support.
“I don’t think that the Chief Justice’s ruling is going to change anything for us,” APNU Leader David Granger told Stabroek News. While saying that acting Chief Justice Ian Chang erred in his ruling and that it was “an unwarranted intervention into the functions of the National Assembly,” Granger said that even if Justice Chang’s language is used, the opposition can “disapprove” entire line items instead of reducing them as happened during the 2012 and 2013 budgets.
He said that their policy is driven by the public interest and “we have the right to
