Dear Editor,
It is sad when our National Leaders descend to a level of deception which allows them to replace “Facts,” with propaganda for political grandstanding. The time has come for the PPP/C Leaders to abandon their age-old propaganda strategy. Technology and social media give the general public easy access to FACTS.
Editor, I am compelled to respond to the mendacious propaganda of Guyana’s Attorney General, Mr. Anil Nandlall, SC, MP, who continues to misguide and misinform the public.
On December 13, 2022 on his weekly program, “Issues in the News,” aired every Tuesday night via NTN channel 69 and streamed on his Facebook Page and Freedom Radio, Mr. Nandlall made erroneous statements about the work of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and other issues. As you are aware, the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly is a critical committee, which examines government’s expenditure against that approved by the National Assembly, to ensure proper accountability. Referring to the PAC, Mr. Nandlall said “They do not want to do, they do not want to analyze the years that they (referring to the Coalition Government) were in Government. The PAC ought in a chronological order examine the accounts of the country done by the Auditor General. They want to skip 2018 and 2019 and they want to come to 2020…” Additionally, this gentleman questioned, “why you want to skip the two years to get to the PPP…?”
Editor, it is public knowledge that my Colleague, Hon. Jermaine Figueira, MP, and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, is on record stating that the reason for the proposal by the Opposition for years to be combined is to speed up the examination of the Auditor’s General Reports. This is not new since precedents were set by previous Parliaments. Mr. Nandlall also stated that “the country had no Parliamentary oversight after December 21, 2018. The Government was toppled by a No Confidence Motion and there were no Parliamentary sittings for the entire 2019”. Editor, I found these utterances to be disingenuous. The FACTS are there for the public to see: The National Assembly did meet in 2019 and sittings were held on January 3, 2019, April 26, 2019, May 15, 2019, and May 23, 2019. While the NCM was debated and passed in the National Assembly on December 21, 2018. Also, Editor, Mr. Nandlall made mention of monies expended by the Coalition Government in 2020. Mr. Nandlall is well familiar that in the absence of a National Budget for 2020, between January 2020 t0 July 2020, one twelfth of the previous year’s (2019) budget across Ministries were expended to take care of “Current Expenditure,” that is, payment of salaries and statutory benefits.
Mr. Nandlall continued to rant that “there was no budgetary allocations and appropriation for 2019”. The FACTS are that the 2019 Annual Budget was laid on November 26, 2018, debated, considered, and passed on December 14, 2018. Also, the Appropriation Act No. 22 of 2018 was passed on that very date. The PPP/C participated in those debates from the opposition side of the House. The Eleventh Parliament was dissolved on December 31, 2019.
Editor, I conclude by calling on Mr. Nandlall to desist from creating public mischief and to act in a manner befitting his office. Let him mend his estranged relationship with truth.
Yours sincerely,
Annette Ferguson
Member of Parliament
