PM’s budget approved

-questions persist over constitutional reform funds

The $908 million budget for the Office of the Prime Minister was approved by the Committee of Supply yesterday although questions remain unanswered about the location of funds that were previously allocated for constitutional reform, while the Prime Minister was circumspect about progress in this area next year.

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo told the Committee that sums allocated for constitutional reform in 2018, which were vired to other line items within the current account of his office, will be returned to the Consolidated Fund.

Nagamootoo said his office will be returning more than $65 million to the treasury because work in constitutional reform did not progress as anticipated in 2018.

He assigned responsibility for this failure to the Standing Committee on Constitutional Reform, which is chaired by Attorney General Basil Williams. The Constitutional Reform Bill that was referred to committee in July, 2017, has not been returned to the House.

However when asked by opposition parliamentarian Irfaan Ali why the surplus was not reflected in the estimates before the House, Nagamootoo claimed the sums had been transferred to cover a deficit in another account.

Ali then questioned why no corresponding increase was noted in the relevant account, Nagamootoo said that only $2 million of the total sum was vired specifically to line items 6271 (Field Materials) and 622 (Supplies).

The estimates presented reflect that $109,210,000 was allocated in the 2018 Budget under line item 6284 (Other), while $107,060,000 is expected to be spent at the end of December.

As Ali continued to question why the Prime Minister told the House that there would be savings of $65 million when the estimates do not reflect same, a belligerent Nagamootoo declared that he had been told that the $109 million was a “lump sum given to the Prime Minister to spend at his discretion.”

“I have not said that $65 million was vired. I have said $65 million would be returned to the consolidated fund since it was not spent,” Nagamootoo said.

Ali, in turn, stressed that the budget estimates, which were calculated based on expenditure at the end of October, showed that the $65 million was spent.

“The revised estimate for 2018 is saying that $65 million was spent. It would’ve meant that the money was released to the agency. The Honourable member needs to direct us,” he stressed.

Nagamootoo maintained that as of October 31st, the sum remains unspent and that it would be returned to the Consolidated Fund at the end of the year.

For the 2019 budget, the same line item reflects an allocation of $80 million, which has been allocated for tours of 50 schools, hosting and maintenance of the Department of Public Information (DPI) website, the purchase of cellphones, and training for radio broadcasters. The sum of $5 million has also been budgeted for community outreach, while $38.6 million is budgeted for constitutional reform.

‘Dependent’

Nagamootoo made sure to indicate that the expenditure of the sum allocated for constitutional reform is “dependent on whether or not the reform commission is formed under law being reviewed by the standing committee.”

As the Prime Minister attempted to claim government was making strides in constitutional reform, the opposition benches erupted in criticism.

“You lie man! You lie! I on that committee and I know you lie,” opposition parliamentarian Priya Manickchand declared.

In an interview with the DPI, the Attorney General said that the opposition continues to stall the work of the Committee, which has only met five times since being constituted. He noted that a meeting called for December 7th was attended only by Manickchand, who left before the meeting begun.

“Even if we were to proceed without them, in relation to the type of amendments… some of them would require a two-thirds majority… those would meet a stumbling block in the National Assembly,” he is reported as saying.

However, political analyst Ralph Ramkarran, who is a former Speaker of the National Assembly, has argued that Nagamootoo himself has the power to push constitutional reform if he so desires.

“…Prime Minister Nagamootoo is not powerless. Under the Constitution of Guyana, he is the Leader of Government Business in the National Assembly. If a Bill in his name is before the Standing Committee for Constitutional Reform, and there is delay in considering it, he cannot pass the buck. He cannot blame the Committee. As Prime Minister and Leader of Government Business, he has the authority to direct AG Basil Williams to convene a meeting of the Committee to consider the Bill,” Ramkarran wrote in his weekly ‘The Conversation Tree’ column in the Sunday Stabroek.