APNU+AFC MP David Patterson has filed a lawsuit against the Attorney General and Minister of Finance seeking a declaration that the consideration and approval of budget proposals of constitutional agencies by the National Assembly on September 1st was in breach of Section 80 B(2) of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA).
Patterson, who served under the former APNU+AFC coalition government as Minister of Public Infrastructure, has advanced that the proposals which were not made available to his party before September 1st breached the Act.
He is also hoping that the court would grant him a declaration that the budget and/or proposal of the Audit Office ought to have been submitted to Parliament by the Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee, prior to approval and consideration by the House in accordance with the FMAA.
For lack of compliance with this procedure, Patterson argues through his attorneys that the consideration and/or approval of the 2020 budget is “bad in law, null and of no legal effect.”
He is arguing, also, that a failure to circulate the budget proposals of the constitutional agencies to members of the APNU+AFC party, of which he is a member, prior to September 1st is also in breach of the FMAA.
He wants a declaration that any appropriation in respect of the constitutional agencies pursuant to consideration and approval by the National Assembly on September 1st is null, void and of no legal effect.
In all the circumstances, Patterson wants the Supreme Court to order the Minister of Finance or minister performing those functions, the Financial Secretary, their servants, agents or whosoever from making or causing any disbursement to be made of any sums in favour of constitutional agencies “purportedly” approved by the National Assembly on September 1st.
Patterson is also seeking an order prohibiting these persons from including the purported budget appropriation for constitutional agencies in the estimates of the Public Sector in accordance with the FMAA pursuant to the purported approval by the House.
He also wants the court to grant any further order it may deem fit, as well as costs.
Patterson, who is a member of the National Assembly and Chairman of the Public Accounts Com-mittee (PAC), deposed in his Fixed Date Application that on August 28th he received a copy of the Order Paper for the first sitting of the 12th Parliament which stated that the House was to consider the 2020 Budget proposals of constitutional agencies.
To be circulated
He said that in respect of each of the 23 agencies named, the proposals stated “to be circulated.”
According to Patterson, however, on September 1st, none of the proposals had been circulated to either him or any other Member of Parliament of the APNU+AFC “in sufficient time to enable consideration by the Assembly.”
Patterson notes that amongst the constitutional agencies whose budgets were “purportedly approved” were the Audit Office and the Leader of the Opposition.
He argues, however, that Section 80 B (1) of the FMAA provides with respect to the Audit Office that it shall be submitted to Parliament by the Chairperson of the PAC.
Patterson said that the PAC was not constituted until September 15th.
He said that by Order 82 (2) of the Standing Orders of the National Assembly, the Chairperson of the PAC must be a member of the main Opposition, while pointing out that as at September 1st, no member of the National Assembly had been elected Chairperson.
The applicant said that pursuant to Section 80 B (6) of the FMAA, the annual budget appropriation for constitutional agencies shall be included in the estimates of the Public Section as subventions to constitutional agencies.
He then outlined that Section 80 B (8) of the Act provides that the appropriation of constitutional agencies approved by the National Assembly shall be disbursed as a lump sum by the end of the month, following the month in which the appropriation is approved.
Patterson argues that no expenditure of any sum of money can lawfully occur except in accordance with the Constitution and terms approved by Parliament, inclusive of the FMAA.
He advances that in the circumstances, “the purported approval of the Budget proposals of constitutional agencies are in breach” of the FMAA and are therefore without legal validity.
Paterson said that as member of the National Assembly, it is right and proper for him to insist and demand that there be full and complete compliance with the relevant statutory requirements to ensure compliance with the Act.
Patterson is being represented by a battery of attorneys led by Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde.
Forde, an APNU+AFC MP, had previously said that the PPP/C government has committed several breaches of the Constitution and the FMAA in what he had described as the government’s undue haste to the treasury, thereby setting aside sums already spent as if they were to be spent in a bid to obstruct full examination of its proposed spending for the remainder of the year.
In an interview with this newspaper on September 25th, in relation to what he said was a breach of Section 80 B (2), Forde said that the PPP/C on September 1st, the date of the first sitting of the first session of the 12th Parliament, purported to appropriate disbursements of sums in favour of the constitutional agencies.
This, he had said, was done without the submission to Parliament, by the Chairman of the PAC, of the Budget or Budget Proposal of the Audit Office or for the approval and consideration by the National Assembly; and also, without first circulating the Budget or a proposal of the agencies to the Opposition prior to the first sitting.
The lawyer had said that the government had failed to properly amend the Schedule to the FMAA.
On this point, he had said, the opposition objected to the presentation and consideration of the Estimates and Expenditure for 2020 as it referred to Budget Agencies which were not in existence at the date of the laying of the Estimates and Expenditure in the House and at the time of the consideration and approval of the estimates and expenditure by the National Assembly.
He had said that government, recognizing that there was merit in the Opposition’s objection, sought to remedy the situation by publishing on September 3rd in the Gazette an amendment to the Schedule of the FMAA.
But according to Forde, this purported publication of the amendment is incapable of curing the defect.
