Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield yesterday said that while as of December 31st, 2019, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) will no longer possess the funds it needs to conduct elections on March 2nd, Finance Minister Winston Jordan has assured the Commission that the monies will be provided.
This was revealed to the media during a press conference at the Commission yesterday morning.
Asked whether GECOM has the requisite funds needed to facilitate elections prompted by the no-confidence vote of December 21st, 2018, Lowenfield confirmed that the Com-mission was indeed in possession of funds to facilitate elections. $5.3 billion was provided to GECOM in budget 2019, and an additional $3.5 billion was provided via supplementary appropriations in May 2019.
Lowenfield noted, however, that “this money was voted in (2019) for 19”, “whereas these elections are slated for 2020”.
Section 43 of the Fiscal Management and Account-ability Act, addressing unexpended balances of public moneys, provides that “…at the end of each fiscal year, any unexpended balance of public moneys issued out of the Consolidated Fund shall be returned and surrendered to the Consolidated Fund.”
Given that a fiscal year runs from January 1st to December 31st, the effect of section 43 of the Act is that whatever funds GECOM received to host elections 2019 will be classified as an “unexpended balance”, and must be returned to the Consolidated Fund at the end of the fiscal year, leaving the Commission without the funds it needs to conduct elections on March 2nd.
These circumstances prompted the Commission to seek the advice of the Ministry of Finance.
Lowenfield told the press that GECOM Chair, Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh, in the circumstances, wrote Jordan, who has responded. “The minister did write and indicate that we will be provided with whatever is required for those elections”, Lowenfield said.
As the incumbent government has “caretaker” status, it is proscribed from preparing and passing a budget for 2020. This means that there will be no budgetary allocation in which funds for the 2020 elections can, or will be provided.
Monies to be provided in the circumstances may be so done under Section 41 of the Act, although Jordan could not be reach-ed to confirm whether this is the section under which government plans to avail GECOM the funds it will need.
Section 41 (3) (b) and (c) allows the Finance Minister, where he is satisfied that an urgent, unavoidable and unforeseen need for expenditure has arisen for which moneys cannot be reallocated, or which cannot be deferred without injury to the public interest, to approve a Contingencies Fund advance as an expenditure out of the Consolidated Fund by the issuance of a drawing right.
Importantly, however, the amounts which can be allocated under this mechanism are limited. Section 41 (4) provides that the “the total amount to be drawn from the Contingencies Fund…shall not exceed two percent of the estimated annual expenditure of the last preceding fiscal year as shown in the annual budget proposal approved by the National Assembly may approve.”
Given that the budget for 2019 was $300.7 billion, government may provide up to $6 billion via this mechanism.
Auditor General Deodat Sharma, explained to Stabroek News yesterday that the 2 percent referenced in the act refers to the total amount which can be taken as a contingency.
Importantly, the $7.9 billion supplementary appropriation approved this year has no bearing on this appropriation as it was not facilitated under the Contingencies Fund mechanism.
Asked whether section 41 could be triggered to afford GECOM the funds it needs to conduct elections on March 2nd, Sharma said that it could, but that the reason would have to satisfy the requirements of the section. “The Act requires that the matter be urgent and unforeseeable, and that should have been foreseeable,” Sharma said.
He nevertheless said “since this is an issue of national importance, it is not something that I would query.”
It is unclear how much of the funds previously received by GECOM has been expended. It is also uncertain how much GECOM needs to finalise its preparations to conduct elections, and therefore, whether what government may take via the Contingencies Fund mechanism will be enough.
