Speaker Manzoor Nadir has said that concerns raised about a “slashing” of the budget for the Office of the Leader of the Opposition (OLO) stemmed from a miscommunication by Parliament Office staff.
“The communication from the National Assembly staff to the Leader of the Opposition was totally incorrect because the opposition office budget over the years has been incrementally increasing from $30 million to $31 million to $32 million. They communicated that it was $84 million and nowhere in this government is any department, agency or line item moving to [a] 200% increase, so it was a big error on whoever communicated that to the Leader of the Opposition,” Nadir told Stabroek News on Friday.
OLO spokesperson Imran Khan has been reported in several sections of the media as having said that the current allocation was reduced from $84 million to $37 million, while the capital allocation was reduced from $19 million to $5 million. Stabroek News reached out to Khan but up to press time was unable to make contact.
Nadir, however, maintained that the National Assembly never approved a sum for the OLO. Instead, he explained, in keeping with a 2015 amendment to the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA), a lump sum was approved for the Parliament Office, which has disbursed said funds in the most appropriate manner.
The Assembly approved $1.8 billion in Current expenditure and $65 million in Capital expenditure for Parliament Office.
“The National Assembly does not allocate a line item to the Office of the Leader of the Opposition, they allocate a lump sum to the Parliament Office. If we have to (allocate) $84 million to the OLO, we will have to cut other projects. As it stands the Opposition Leader will have $2 million more this year than last year,” Nadir stressed.
