Former Minister of Finance under the PNC administration Carl Greenidge has signalled his intention to table an amendment to the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA) to make it possible that Ministers along with other officials could be fined and jailed for financial improprieties.
The Bill is entitled ‘Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) Bill 2013’ – Bill No. 5/2013 and notice of it was given on January 15, 2013.
The Bill proposes to extend Section 85 of the principal act to specify Ministers. The extant legislation says in Section 85, “An official who – (a) falsifies any account, statement, receipt or other record issued or kept for the purposes of this Act, the Regulations, the Finance Circulars or any other instrument made under this Act; (b) conspires or colludes with any other person to defraud the State or make opportunity for any person to defraud the State; or (c) knowingly permits any other person to contravene any provision of this Act, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable on conviction to a fine of two million dollars and to imprisonment for three years.”
The amendment sought for this section will include the word ‘Minister’ as it applies to an official. Greenidge and other members of the Opposition recently accused Minister of Finance, Dr Ashni Singh of breaching the FMAA by making expenditure without the requisite appropriations.
In a comment to this newspaper last week, Greenidge said that the Bill is meant to stop the continued abuse of the Contingencies Fund in particular.
He said that reports of the Auditor General since 2006 have been calling for this practice to cease. “There is the continued abuse of the Contingencies Fund and no sanction coming from the Parliament. The Minister cannot be above the law. This [penalty] provision was a part of the Act originally but the Government took it out,” he said.
He said that a Permanent Secretary cannot be instructed by a Minister to breach the law and hence the provisions of the Bill dealing with penalties. He said that the Government is subverting the independence of Permanent Secretaries by appointing them on contract.
He said that in this way the PS would likely do the bidding of the Minister since he or she is primarily concerned about contract renewal. Further, he said that because of the nature of contracts which entails the payment of a gratuity every six months, the official cannot be surcharged for wrongdoing since there are no accumulated earnings.
The Bill also seeks to establish the independence of Constitutional agencies, including the Service Commissions by amending the provisions of the Act to specifically allow for lump sum payments to be made to these agencies and free them from the automatic obligations of budgetary agencies and the discretion of the Minister of Finance. Greenidge said that these obligations compromise the independence of these agencies, in contravention of the Constitution.
Greenidge said that Article 222 of the Constitution requires Government to treat Constitutional agencies’ budgets in a certain manner. “They must have block votes,” said Greenidge. “The Minister cannot interfere with their money [thereby compromising their independence],” he said.
