Georgetown : Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon said,Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh has moved to restore funds that were voted down by the combined Opposition in the National Assembly.
Speaking at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President, the Secretary to the Cabinet said that the Finance Minister would be tabling financial supplementary papers at the June 19 sitting of the National Assembly.
“There are some who could care less about the consequences about their actions…the parliamentary opposition did not vote one penny for the public servants at the Office of the President for the year 2014. They opposed the provision for appropriation including employment costs for public servants,” he said.
By disapproving the main capital programme for the Office of the President in the 2014 national budget, the Opposition has essentially crippled this high office from carrying out its constitutional and executive functions and moral obligations.
Dr. Luncheon explained that Minister Singh relied on constitutional grounds and the rulings of the constitutional court as the basis to initiate this exercise of restoration of appropriations in the 2014 fiscal year.
“Reference to constitutional and court rulings should not be a novelty, the constitution specifically addresses expenditure, shortages, inadequacies for agencies in discharging their work programme in any fiscal year and the constitution does offer remedies that we have collectively termed restoration,” the HPS said.
Some of the subvention agencies under the Office of the President that were affected include: Government Information Agency, National Communications Network, Presidential Guard Service, Civil Defence Commission, Guyana Office for Investment, Institute of Applied Science and Technology, Guyana Energy Agency, Integrity Commission, and Office of the Commissioner of Information.
The 2014 Appropriation Act was passed in April in the Parliament subsequent to the $37.4B cut from the $220B National budget.
