Category: Public sector

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Luncheon reduces Manickchand to a wild animal

Dr Roger Luncheon, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, may have intended to provide cover for and defence of acting Foreign Minister Ms. Priya Manickchand whose toast at the Fourth of July celebration of the Independence of the United States of America, and farewell for its ambassador to Guyana Mr. Brent Hardt has drawn widespread criticism. There have been words like “disgust”, “lacking decorum”, “descent into the gutter”.

But none of these can compare with Dr Luncheon’s “feral blast” which by implication reduces Ms. Manickchand to the level of a wild beast. It is insulting and demeaning for Dr Luncheon to associate any person, and moreso a woman, with such language.

Ms. Manickchand should reject such an association with her, or any action taken by her. I believe that she should have refused to deliver such a “toast” which could only damage the relations between Guyana and United States of America and the public’s perception of her.
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Potential financial crisis looms

Introduction
My blog of April 20, 2014 was captioned Doubts about Government respecting the budget non-approvals. That e-column followed the passage of the Appropriation Act 2014 introduced by the Minister of Finance and passed on April 16, 2014. In that column, I noted that the passage of the Appropriation Bill had given way to skepticism, suspicion and speculation and I expressed three possible responses by the Government: returning to the courts; bringing the first Supplementary Appropriation Bill for 2014 to restore the noncontroversial items which were victims of collateral damage, or thirdly that the Minister of Finance would “simply release the funds that [had] been removed by the Opposition and accepted by the Government in the amended Appropriation Act.”

It is now known that the government, through the Minister of Finance, chose to spend public moneys on items in programmes that had been specifically rejected by the National Assembly. Last Thursday, by way of Bill No 12 of 2014 the Minister presented to the National Assembly for rubberstamping $610,404,711 for current expenditure and $3,943,357,280 for expenditure under the capital programme, a total of $4,553,761,991.

In today’s e-column I seek to explore whether the Minister of Finance has acted properly, legally and constitutionally and the potential consequences of his action which one presumes he pursued on the advice of the Attorney General Mr. Anil Nandlall. According to the Bill presented by the Minister which comes up for debate and approval/non-approval next Thursday, the expenditure is authorized under Article 219 of the Constitution and sections 24 and 41 of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act. I have serious doubts about that. But let us look at each of them.
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Appointing Senior Counsel – wrong priority, wrong approach

Introduction
Depending on the background and interest of who one asks, their responses to identify the principal challenges facing the legal system could include the length of time cases take to conclude; the non-pursuit of cases because the victims don’t want to proceed; the unscrupulousness of some lawyers, especially when dealing with “vulnerable” clients; for groups who deal with women and child victims of violence, the willingness of many lawyers to defend their client by subjecting the victim to a second abuse; and access to justice.

Those with a greater familiarity with the legal system may identify the thousands of cases still to be scheduled for hearing by the courts (a case of justice delayed being justice denied); the non-functioning of the Judicial Service Commission, charged by the Constitution with responsibility to make recommendations on the appointment of judges and for the appointment, discipline and removal of the majority of senior judicial officers; the inordinate delay by some judges in providing written decisions despite the passage of legislation to remedy this mischief; the quality of submissions by attorneys and the resulting quality of the decisions by the courts; and misconduct by attorneys at law – senior and junior – including the egregious violations of the code of practice for attorneys prescribed by law.
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Stats Bureau should be doing far more to explain questionable GDP numbers

It was refreshing to see the letter by Chief Statistician Mr. Lennox Benjamin `Challenge of country’s growth estimate was undertaken without single reference to the economy’s sectoral sources of expansion’ (Stabroek News, May 4, 2014). Mr. Benjamin was responding to a letter in the Stabroek News of April 26, 2014 “challeng[ing] the Minister to illustrate to the nation how he arrived at the 5 per cent GDP growth rate reported in his 2014 Budget Speech”. In support of their conclusion “that the 5 per cent growth rate was an act of economic illusion”, the writers of the first letter drew attention to an overall balance of payments deficit of US$119.5 million compared to a surplus of US$32.9 million in 2012.

In his response Mr. Benjamin states that if the writers have doubts on the figures, they must say what the numbers should be. Mr. Benjamin is confusing the duty of the Stats Bureau to produce accurate and timely information with the right of the public to question the information and to ask for explanations. For example, the Stats Bureau reported an inflation rate of 0.9% in 2013, which as Mr. Benjamin knows is not a national inflation rate but an Urban Consumer Price Index for Georgetown only. The so-called inflation rate of 0.9% for 2013 not only defies all logic but is inconsistent with and unsupported by the several different specific and complementary measures and indicators to which Mr. Benjamin himself refers.
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Doubts about Government respecting the budget non-approvals

Introduction
The mixture of surprise and relief when Dr. Ashni Singh, Minister of Finance announced in the National Assembly that he would be amending the 2014 Appropriation Bill to reflect the non-approval by the Committee of Supply of several items in the 2014 National Budget has given way to skepticism, suspicion and speculation. Of the six Programmes not approved, two are under the Office of the President, one under the capital budget and the other the current budget. The full list is:

Among the projects or entities affected by non-approval were the usual suspects, the Government Information Agency (GINA), (previously referred to in the Estimates as Guyana Information Agency), National Communications Network (NCN), the Specialty Hospital and the Information Technology Project funded by the Chinese and way, way behind schedule. Mildly surprising were the Chinese-funded Airport Project and the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project, both of which in earlier appropriations by the National Assembly had received some support of the parliamentary opposition, albeit under some rather interesting circumstances.
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