The Alliance for Change (AFC) is recommending that a Budget Office, similar to the United States of America (USA)’s Congressional Budget Office (CBO), be established to make resources available to the Legislature in considering budget proposals and estimates. The suggestion was made yesterday by the Party’s Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, during a virtual press conference.
The US CBO produces independent, nonpartisan, analysis of economic and budgetary issues to support the Congressional budget process.
The former Public Security Minister, who served in the David Granger-led 2015-2020 government, said that the mechanism will put the Legislature “on a more equal footing” with the Executive Branch when it comes to exercising power over public finance. This will also balance credibility of the Budget process by challenging facts and assumptions which otherwise go unchallenged, Ramjattan said.
The AFC Leader said that such a mechanism is required, alleging that Guyana’s 2022 National Budget approval process was characterized by “a desire on the part of both the government and the Speaker of the House, to prevent thorough scrutiny and interrogation”.
Ramjattan asserted, “One of the first unacceptable hurdles confronted by members of the Opposition was the reduction by one day for the interrogation of the Estimates. Both the Government and the Speaker knew well that this was the largest Budget ever, with $ 127 billion from the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) being inputted into the spending for 2022.” Ramjattan continued, “This obviously needed the maximum days provided for by our Standing Orders, namely 5 days. In previous Budgets which were far less, the full five days were consented to by all Parties. This alone proves that in 2022 the PPP Government is indisposed to maximum transparency and scrutiny.”
He added that the “lengthy and ludicrous” answers given by Ministers, further caused time to run out thereby preventing a number of Agencies from being interrogated.
“Thirdly and significantly, there was an avoidance and evasion of answers by the entire Government team to facilitate the identification of what projects the NRF revenue stream went towards,” the former minister noted.
“These shortcomings in the approval process have compelled the AFC to recommend that there be the establishment of a Budget Office to be a resource available to our Legislature in considering Budget Proposals and Estimates,” Ramjattan concluded
