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Nov 01, 2012 News
Leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan, disclosed yesterday that talks are being initiated on a proposed amendment to the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA) to ensure that Government officials come clean when accessing public funds.
The AFC head and Member of Parliament, at the party’s weekly press briefing, stated that it recently came to light that some breaches and inconsistencies pertaining to the legal procedure permitting the Minister of Finance access to money from the state’s Contingency Fund.
In highlighting the discrepancies, Ramjattan revealed that the FMAA legislation provides for very little to be done subsequent to a breach in the legislation that governs the application of the Fund’s money. With that fact, Ramjattan urged that the FMAA must be revisited.
Ramjattan said that billions of dollars have been taken from the Contingency Fund to finance a number of projects and institutions which had the budgetary allocations cut. Under certain circumstances, Ramjattan said, money can be taken from the Fund.
“But immediately after that is done, at the next following session of Parliament, the Finance Minister is supposed to bring what he has taken out of the Contingency Fund for Parliamentary authorization”. Parliamentary authorization, the AFC official explained, is permission given by House members based on the projects spending. But that legislation, Ramjattan said, has not been complied with, and there has already been a Parliamentary seating.
“The funny thing in relation to Contingency Fund spending, is that when it is spent and we in Parliament do not authorize the spending, there is nothing known that we can do about it. We can just probably chastise the Minister or bring a contempt of privilege motion against him,” Ramjattan emphasized.
Under section 85 of the FMAA, which speaks to the misuse of public funds, Ramjattan lamented that after speaking to some of the highest legal advisors in the land, “The word ‘official’ who breaches and violates the provisions of this FMAA…may not mean the Minister.”
Ramjattan explained that what that piece of legislation means; is that despite the Finance Minister being the only one with authorized access to the Contingency Fund, “the official that is going to be prosecuted and sent to jail, is the fellow who actually writes up the cheque. And that will be very unjust to that person working at that Ministry,” Ramjattan highlighted.
He said the amendment of the Act may very well steer in the direction of making the word “official” mean the Minister, “So that we can prosecute him and jail him.”
In addition, Ramjattan said that his party is being advised on an amendment of the amount of money placed in the Contingency Fund.
He noted that the current administration had made adjustments to the Contingency Fund raising it from $500,000 to what now amounts to over $3.5B. He said the amendment of the Fund’s amount will then be related to the other opposition party for discussions on what steps should be taken in this regard.
On completion of the proposed amendment, Ramjattan however noted that despite the opposition moves, the President’s assent is needed.
“But we are going to test the President too, to find out if he wants a halt to this kind of misspending.”
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