Consideration of the budgetary allocations for 16 constitutional agencies was yesterday delayed for five hours while the House struggled to provide the opposition with copies of the budgets as submitted to the Clerk. At the end of the delay the agencies received lump sum allocations totaling more than $11 billion.
For the last three years the lump sum allocation for these agencies has been considered and passed separately from the regular budget in keeping with a 2015 amendment to the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA) which granted these agencies financial autonomy. The House during the years 2016 to 2018 examined only the lump sum requested by the agencies and Finance Minister Winston Jordan’s recommendation.