Despite the former A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) government spending $179.3 million on sea defence breaches that occurred in 2019 at Dantzig, Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), this expenditure is yet to be accounted for at the level of the National Assembly.
During Monday’s sitting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Ministry of Agriculture was put under the microscope.
In his 2019 report, Auditor General Deodat Sharma found that two cheques totaling $179.3 million was paid in 2019 to the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA).
The Auditor General had found that the Ministry of Agriculture breached the law by withdrawing this sum in the first place. Section 43 of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act 2003 requires all unspent balances to be refunded to the Consolidated Fund at the end of the fiscal year.
It was pointed out by the Auditor General in his report that the Ministry breached the Act by the withdrawing this significant sum on the 31 December 2019. But further probing by PAC member and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Gail Teixeira revealed that no supplementary paper was ever brought to the National Assembly to cover this sum.
Agriculture Ministry Permanent Secretary Delma Nedd admitted that while it was a contingency expense, a financial paper was never brought to the National Assembly to cover it. She explained that it was considered an emergency. However, Teixeira explained that based on the laws a supplementary financial paper must still be brought to the National Assembly, after the fact.
“Therefore, there’s a mistake, there’s a gap. Because it meant that the supplementary financial paper should have come in 2020 to cover it. Whether contingency or consolidated, it has to go to parliament as an SFP. Whether a year later, six months later or whatever. There was no budget for 2020 (under the APNU/AFC government). It therefore had to be backdated,” Teixeira said.
However, Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) and PAC member Ganesh Mahipaul pointed out that after the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) took office, it passed a budget in September 2020 and supplementary financial papers in December of the same year. But Teixeira noted that none of those financial papers covered expenditures for 2019.
“Except the money was spent January to August and then October to December. So, there were two documents. One to cover the expenditures that had already taken place without parliament approval with parliament backstamping it in September and then October to December being presented. There wasn’t any supplementary financial paper for 2019. It may have been an oversight. But it should have been done,” Teixeira said.
At this point Mahipaul referenced the one/twelfth rule, which allows the Minister of Finance to draw from the Contingency fund in the event of an emergency. He said that after the government changed, the necessary documents should have come from the Ministry to parliament whenever it reconvened.
However, Teixeira pointed to the lack of paperwork for much of the money spent during APNU/AFC’s last year in office. And Teixeira noted that after the PPP/C government came to power in September 2020, they prepared and brought supplemental papers for expenditures they were given supporting documents for. The expenditures at Dantzig seems not to have been one of them.
“Mahipaul, I’m not willing to play your games. The point is, that 2019 was the last budget to be passed. And the constitution says the budget should be passed by the end of March annually. In this case it was an aberration because it wasn’t passed until October 2020. Whatever documents were available between January and September, were provided to the government and laid,” the PPP Chief Whip said.
“In some way, there was an omission by somebody in terms of their submissions, to include this contingency fund extraction in December 2019… I’m not willing to play games like the government changed and we should have put it in. We didn’t even have half the paperwork for January to August in line,” Teixeira added.
Meanwhile, Mahipaul proposed that now that it has come up before the PAC, the current PPP/C Government should bring the supplementary paper to the National Assembly. The Permanent Secretary for her part was given a two weeks deadline to submit various items to the PAC, including an asset register for the NDIA.
The former APNU/AFC Government was brought down by a No Confidence motion since December 2018, at which point elections should have been held within five months. Instead, APNU/AFC continued to govern the country and passed a $300.7 billion budget in 2019, while trying simultaneously to overturn the No Confidence decision.
Even after losing the March 2020 General and Regional elections, however, APNU/AFC remained in power for a further five months in a futile attempt to sway the results. It was only in August 2020, after former President David Granger finally left office, that President Dr. Irfaan Ali succeeded him.
