Attorney-at-law Deborah Backer yesterday described as a diversion, the imminent move by Prime Minister Sam Hinds to re-table a motion to have the National Assembly ensure that Members of Parliament submit annual declarations, in keeping with the requirements of the Integrity Commission Act.
Backer, who was at the time addressing members of the media during an APNU press conference, said that in response to a letter from Opposition Leader David Granger, the secretary of the commission had indicated that the commission’s life came to an end on May 28, and as such there is no commission. Backer said this is what Hinds should be dealing with.
In March 2010, Hinds had tabled a motion which called on the House to declare “that failure of Members of Parliament to submit annual declarations is a violation of the law and a gross indictment of those members and vicariously on the integrity of Parliament.” Further, the motion called for persistent defaulters to be sanctioned by the House according to established norms of ethics and brought before the Committee of Privileges.
A month later, in April 2010, the motion was withdrawn as there was a pending court matter, filed since May 2005 by then opposition leader Robert Corbin, seeking to nullify the commission. Corbin’s suit was on the grounds that he had not been consulted, as was constitutionally required. It is not known whether that court matter was ever concluded,
Also, back in January, 2008, then president Bharrat Jagdeo had, during a press conference, publicly called for the Integrity Commission to publish the names of officials who were not submitting statements of income and assets. At that time, the committee had not been functional for two years, following the resignation in 2006 of its chairman, Anglican Bishop Randolph George.
‘Train of illegalities’
Meanwhile, Backer yesterday also termed as a diversion, the recent court action by the government seeking to overturn budget cuts made by the opposition. She warned that should the court rule in the government’s favour, it would set off a “train of illegalities.”
Backer noted that in the action brought by Attorney-General Anil Nandlall no mention was made of the fact that the Appropriations Bill had been voted on unanimously by the House and later assented to by the President Donald Ramotar.
The government filed the ex-parte motion in the High Court, in which it asked for the court to grant an order vacating and/or setting aside the budget reduction as well as an interim order to allow Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh to make advances from the Contingencies Fund to restore the original allocations for the agencies affected by the cuts. Chief Justice Ian Chang on Thursday began hearing arguments from Nandlall and has set July 3 for the resumption of the matter.
Yesterday Backer said the government is like a “headless chicken running all over trying to find things.” She said it wanted to create distractions from revelations about NICIL and all that is coming out about the contractor approved to expand the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, whose parent company has been blacklisted by the World Bank. (See story on page 3)
“There are serious financial irregularities hanging over the head of the government and other members who have very close ties to the government. So we see this as a diversionary exercise,” Backer said.
APNU’s Joe Harmon also addressing the issue reminded that at the conclusion of the estimates in Parliament it was the Minister of Finance who tabled the Appropriations Bill, which contained the amended budget as approved by the National Assembly, which was then unanimously passed by the House. The Bill was then sent to the President who assented to it making it law and it became an Appropriations Act.
“It was this which allowed the Finance Minister to start making payments to the various ministries and agencies that are budget agencies,” Harmon said.
He argued that by the recent action in the High Court the administration is seeking to arrogate authority onto itself to spend money from the national coffers through an order of the court when the National Assembly said it could not do so.
He said APNU views the move as an “insidious attempt” to thwart the will of the people and to establish the supremacy of the judicial arm of the state over the legislative arm.
He said “APNU… will resist all efforts on the part of the government to expend monies which were not approved by the National Assembly.”
According to Harmon, should the court grant the order the government is seeking it would mean that the court would be allowing the finance minister to start drawing down monies from the contingency fund to restore what was cut from the budget.
“So in effect what you are going to get is a sort of backdoor approval that the National Assembly… deliberated upon, voted, approved and an entire process would have been gone through. So what is happening here is that they are seeking to give the minister of finance the authority to do certain things which the National Assembly said he should not do.”
Backer charged that the PPP/C had been unable to get pass the November 28, 2011 elections results, and while the country has moved forward it remained on “the other side of the bridge… For some reason the PPP/C seems fixated on the pre-November 28 situation.”
The court move by the government was the second challenge filed by government against a decision made by the combined opposition majority in the National Assembly. It followed a failed bid to get the court to quash the composition of key parliamentary committees.
