…Opposition says the move undermines the Constitution
By Svetlana Marshall
The People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government used its majority in the National Assembly on Thursday to undo changes to the Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) Act, which were made by the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Government in 2015 – a move the Opposition argued undermines the country’s Constitution.
The Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) (FMAA) Bill of 2021, which was tabled by Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, was passed in the House on Thursday evening and will result in Section 80B of the Principal Act, among other things, being amended by the removal of subsections (1) to (4).
Effectively, the amendment will see the budgetary proposals for Constitutional Agencies being included in the National Budget as was done pre-2015, as against it being presented in advance.
According to the Finance Minister, the two-stage process resulted in a fragmented and inefficient process for consideration of the National Budget.
“The effect of this amendment is to correct the anomaly which gave the Clerk of the National Assembly certain functions in respect of budget proposals and the presentation of those proposals to the National Assembly by returning those functions to the Minister with responsibility for finance,” the Explanatory Memorandum stated.
Minister Singh told the House that the amendments will streamline the budgetary process, thereby allowing Parliament to consider the Budget with greater efficiency and effectiveness.
He said that the 2015 amendments, which were intended to give effect to Article 222 (A) of the Constitution, had instead collided with the Constitution.
“And collided in a manner that renders in fact, the process of this National Assembly’s consideration of the National Budget convoluted, complicated and in fact problematic,” he said while noting that the new Bill intends to simplify the budgetary process by removing the two-prong stem.
But the Bill did not garner the support of the APNU+AFC, whose Members of Parliament (MPs) argued that the new amendments undermine Article 222 (A) of the Constitution.
The Article, in part, states: “The expenditure of each of the entities shall be financed as a direct charge on the Consolidated Fund, determined as a lump sum by way of an annual subvention approved by the National Assembly after a review and approval of the entity’s annual budget as a part of the process of the determination of the national budget.”
APNU+AFC Member of Parliament, Roysdale Forde explained that the 2015 amendments to the FMAA allowed for the request for funding by the agencies to be considered directly and only by the National Assembly instead of through the subject Ministry as contemplated by the Constitution.
“The 2015 Amendment outlined a procedure for the Agencies requests for funding to be considered directly by and only by the National Assembly instead of the Executive micro-managing the activities of the Constitutional Agencies. Mr. Speaker, the measures set out in the 2015 Act ended the Executive’s ability to interfere with the affairs of the Constitutional Agencies,” Forde told the House.
He added: “These measures represented a positive, enlightening and forward looking system, which aimed to prevent the state of affairs which existed prior to 2015, for 23 years from 1992 to 2015, a state of affairs in which the Executive was free to mismanage and control the activities of the Constitutional Agencies.”
He emphasized that the Amendment Act of 2015, established for the first time, a legislative foundation for the independence of the Constitutional Agencies by giving them control of their finances.
However, he said the amendments proposed by the PPP/C Administration will only result in executive control and abuse of the Constitutional Agencies.
“By amending the Schedule to the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act of 2015 to now include the Constitutional Agencies which are listed in the Third Schedule to the Constitution. The Peoples’ Progressive Party/Civic has once again relegated these Constitutional Agencies to mere Budget Agencies subject to the whims and fancies of the Minister of Finance, his political agenda and this of his party,” Forde argued.
However, PPP/C Member of Parliament and Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill accused Forde of defending amendments that only brought “confusion” and “conflict.”
Minister Edghill argued that though the 2015 amendments sought to give constitutional agencies their financial independence, their budgets were significantly reduced by former Finance Minister Winston Jordon under the APNU+AFC Government between 2015 and 2020.
The Government’s Chief Whip and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance, Gail Teixeira echoed similar sentiments.
“There cannot be a situation where bodies are asking for millions and millions of dollars, and when you add up all of the Constitutional Bodies several billion dollars; in fact I remembered in 2015, the Minister had cut the budget by about $5B for all of the constitutional bodies, and the same thing went on in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 budget,” Minister Teixeira argued.
Further, she contended that the 2015 amendments removed the review and scrutiny of the National Assembly for any of the constitutional bodies requesting money from the Consolidated Fund.
But Opposition MP, Khemraj Ramjattan, in rejecting the Bill, told the House that the 2015 amendments where intended to bring the FMAA in line with the Constitution. He rejected arguments put by the Government that the 2015 amendments prevented scrutiny and review of the funds allocated to the constitutional agencies.
“In 2015 we gave meaning to constitutional reform with legislative buttressing of Article 222 (A),” MP Ramjattan said.
He submitted that by removing the 2015 amendments, the PPP/C Government is in effect undermining the Constitution.
“We have a situation now whereby all that which we mounted as an institutional process is now being dismounted,” the APNU+AFC Parliamentarian said while noting that though the current framework is not “perfect,” the Government could have built upon that which the Coalition had laid as against reversing it.
“What we must do Mr Speaker, is not to throw the baby with the bathwater; no we must learn to develop and evolve as was said a living constitutional this thing is. So let’s breed life into it rather than to abort that extension that was grown out of the 2015 Fiscal Amendment that was fleshed out and given some backbone to become a living organisation,” he told the House.
However, with only 31 seats in the 65-seat National Assembly, the APNU+AFC lacked the votes needed to save its 2015 amendments, and as such the Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) Bill of 2021 was passed.
