The National Assembly early Friday morning approved in excess of $202M for the budgeted operations of the five constitutional rights commissions.
Approval was given for a total allocation of $202,866,000 for the Human Rights Commission, the Ethnic Relations Commission, the Indigenous People’s Commission, the Rights of the Child Commission and the Women and Gender Equality Commission.
This is $185,466,000 less than the sum requested by the commissions. Throughout the debate on the allocations, the opposition PPP/C vigorously argued that failure to approve the requested sums could lead to the stymieing of projects planned by these commissions, including the five-year plan of the Rights of the Child Commission which was launched in 2012.
These arguments, however, failed to sway the government side of the house, which consistently voted in favour of the sums recommended by Minister of Finance Winston Jordan.
Though Jordan refused to defend each decision, other government Members of Parliament sought to offer a defence.
Second Vice-President Carl Greenidge told the House that the sums being recommended were arrived at through an examination of the past spending of these agencies, among other considerations. He noted that the Ethnic Relations Commission, which in 2014 requested $83M, only spent $49M of that approved sum.
Jordan also noted that the Treasury could not afford to approve larger allocations at this time.
In response to questions from PPP/C MP Priya Manickchand on the impact of the allocation may have on the implementation of the five-year strategic plan of the Rights of the Child Commission, he said, “I believe this amount can be a start of the very five-year plan and as we progress into our five-year term more can be made available when more is available.”
The budget estimates for these commissions along with the 11 other constitutional agencies, following their approval in the House’s Committee of Supply, will be included in the national budget when it is presented and will be made law with the passage of the Appropriations Act.
The approval of the agencies’ budget prior to their inclusion in the Appropriations Act is made possible under the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA).
The FMAA establishes the financial independence of the constitutional entities to specifically allow for lump sum payments to be made to them and to free them from the automatic obligations of budgetary agencies and the attendant discretionary powers exercised by the Minister of Finance.
