Dear Editor,
Yesterday’s passage of the Natural Resource Fund Bill 2021 was a missed opportunity that the PPP/C government will come to regret. The fact is that there were areas of compromise that could have offered support for the most consequential piece of legislation to come before the National Assembly in decades, since it will determine the spending of revenues that will shortly be multiple times our current national budget. Appointments to the NRF board needing to be approved by two thirds of the Parliament, along with adjustments to the nine-member oversight committee, were not outside the bounds of reasonable politics. But no. It is clear the PPP/C wants complete control over how much and how it spends what is the people’s patrimony. The board will be its creature, the oversight committee a neutered watchdog. Claiming that all funds have to be part of the annual budget is meaningless, as was seen yesterday, when the government rammed through legislation using its one-seat majority. The behaviour of the opposition politicians is just a taste of what is to come and is an indication of PNCR’s leader, Aubrey Norton’s immediate influence. The government is getting the opposition it deserves.
Sincerely,
Francis Newton
