Georgetown: The role of the National Assembly in its oversight of the Government’s financial affairs is enshrined in the Constitution and should not be underestimated, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh said.
The Finance Minister explained that the value of parliamentary scrutiny should not be misjudged, as he responded to a claim that the political opposition’s actions on “approving” or “disapproving” the National Budget’s subventions had no effect on government’s ability to fund its financial obligations.
The Finance Minister said that the parliament’s scrutiny utilised at the various points in time during the budgetary cycle, “not only at the time the estimates go to Parliament, not only at the time financial papers go to parliament subsequently, not only at the time that the audited financial statements go to the public accounts committee, not only at the time that the public accounts committee report comes back to parliament, not only the time that the treasury memorandum is tabled in Parliament, but also during the course of the deliberations of the standing sectoral committees”.
He said, “We have in our parliament a rich set of instruments for exercising parliamentary oversight of government.”
Referring to the constitutionally mandated Standing Sectoral Committee, which has a broad mandate, sweeping oversight powers and a rotating chairmanship between government and the opposition, the Finance Minister said that several ministers have appeared before the body to answer pertinent questions about ministerial spending.
“There is provision in our parliamentary practice for parliamentary oversight of the executive, that’s a good thing, we welcome that”.
Government will happily submit itself to any questions and submit required responses or explanations, to any of the parliamentary mechanisms at anytime, the minister added.
“We welcome that parliamentary scrutiny. Every single one of these items is incurred in the national interest and can be defended every single one of them”.
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