If the public reaction to last week’s article (Cheddi’s mantra was `give them the books’ SN: 16/05/12) is anything to go by, discussions between the government and the opposition on financial matters will not bear much fruit anytime soon. The general tenor of those comments, while humorous, was that the government is in no position to allow the level of financial transparency the opposition requires and, as one wit claimed, the best case position for the government is to “take the fifth” (In America people “take the fifth” when exercising their constitutional right to remain silent lest they incriminate themselves)! What this position suggests is that we are in for a politically bumpy ride as the opposition presses its claims and the government seeks to divert attention by pointing in other directions such as the effect of the cuts on job losses, Amerindian development, etc.
While recognizing that if the above position is true, I may be blowing in the wind, sooner or later the process will settle down. In a few months, the 2013 budget cycle for ministries will begin, and in this and the next article, I will close this discussion on the nature and importance of negotiations in our present political context by suggesting some institutional architectures that may be established to ensure that the budgeting process goes a lot smoother and is more productive. But, before doing so, I make the following observations.
Unlike private sector negotiations in which a company may keep secret its strategy and the resources at its disposal and only provide these on a piecemeal basis as required by the negotiation process, in public negotiations, particularly those between government and opposition, such secrecy is not possible. Government and opposition negotiations may be deemed as negotiations between two sides of the same coin and in the normal process governments are required to make all nationally available resources public. Indeed, in modern political systems even security strategies are usually shared with some senior members of the opposition.
Logically, if the opposition becomes involved in any discussions about budgeting that do not result in its having a grasp of the entire fiscal and financial position of the nation, it is leaving itself wide open to all kinds of accusations by its constituencies. Therefore, unless a sufficient level of transparency is forthcoming from the regime, we are likely to see the continuance of the guerilla-like tactics which occurred during the budget process, e.g. one billion dollars removed from the electricity corporation out of the blue and without proper analysis and a similar amount materialised for depressed communities without any clear definition of what constitutes a depressed community.
Furthermore, without substantial transparency, individuals whose names are at present being dragged – rightly or wrongly – in the mud will not in be any position to clear themselves. Experience shows that while various forms of interrogation may be sufficient for a legal process in which arrangements exist for a final guilty or not guilty verdict, in the political process such tactics will only give rise to more questions and additional requests for answers! To sufficiently quell public doubt, a process more akin to a scientific verification methodology has to be adopted: public records have to be open to multiple interventions and possible verifications which allow each stakeholder the opportunity to delve into the records for itself.
Notwithstanding the above, if we are to make progress we need different arrangements for considering the budget even if the government again wins a majority and to understand the reason for the approaches I am suggesting one firstly needs some grasp of the process by which parliament makes laws.
It is well known that for a bill (and the budget may be considered just another bill) to become a law it must go through three stages, usually referred to as readings. At the first reading the bill is introduced; the second reading allows for a debate on the principle of the bill after which, if it is passed, the bill goes to a committee stage where it is considered in some detail and finally the bill is returned to the parliament for a third reading, after which it becomes law.
As I understand it, all of these stages have their purpose. After the introduction of the bill at the first reading, parliament is given at least seven days to consider it and return for the second reading which is a debate on its principles. Here the government says why the bill is necessary and the opposition states why it supports or objects to what is being proposed. This stage is important for it provides the opposition with an opportunity to express an alternative vision, e.g. to tell the nation in general terms why in its view what the government is proposing is beneficial or inimical to its interest and to touch base with its supporters. (Of course when bills are sent to committee before the second reading as our standing orders allows, the opposition capacity to criticize, even the general principle of the legislation, is curtailed).
In the usual scheme of things, the committee stage is even more important for here MPs should stop being partisan as such and join forces to make the bill more attuned to the national interest. It is obvious that this outcome cannot be properly accomplished if the second reading (debate on principle), the committee stage (which normally means a committee of the whole house – all 65 members) and the third reading, by which the bill is made law, are all done together. For this reason, there was a general agreement in the PPP/C that long and complicated bills should go to a special select committee (a sub-committee of the parliament consisting of all the parliamentary parties) that will then consider in-depth the detail of the bill and report back to the parliament, after which the third reading will be taken and the bill become law. Even though the opposition may not support the bill in principle, the government was elected to make laws and usually would have a parliamentary majority. My experience of the select committee stage was of general cooperation among all the parties to produce a better law.
Given that bills sometimes of less than twenty pages go to a select committee, citizens may well enquire how the budget, which consists of about a thousand pages and thousands of line items, can be properly be scrutinized in a committee of the whole house. The short answer is that it cannot!
