Saying government’s justification for spending $4.6 billion from the Consolidated Fund without parliamentary approval doesn’t hold water, financial analyst Christopher Ram is warning that the opposition parties could end up legalising the administration’s unlawful actions.
“The opposition in the National Assembly may consider that they face a dilemma. Can they now not approve those items of expenditure with which they had already said they had no difficulty? Or do they try to legalise by their approval actions that are in violation of the Constitution and decisions of the National Assembly?” Ram wrote, in a letter published in the June 22 Sunday Stabroek.
The government’s Financial Paper No 1 of 2014 – Statement of Excess on the Current and Capital Estimates totaling $4,553,991 for the period ended 2014-06-16, was laid in the National Assembly last Thursday by Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh. The document details government’s expenditure of amounts cut from budget 2014, and the