So while there was no debate on the budget - Hulse did arrive just in time to open a debate on three supplementary appropriations bills that were pushed through the House at the end of the debate. The supplementaries basically represent government overspending - three years of it costing more than $250 million. It's business as usual for government to slip these supplementaries by but this year business sector Senator Godwin Hulse pounced on it, saying it represents gross mismanagement and more than that it's just plain illegal.
Senator Godwin Hulse,
We have supplementaries, supplementaries for three years that are now coming to us in one well swoop. In the face Mr. President of laws that says maximum three months, Mr. President we are going years and years without an audit. I have not seen any statement to this House to say, 'this is the reason I can't come.' The Accountant General has not sent a request for any extension of her time to prepare these statements.
The other point Mr. President is the audit. I have been belabored the point ad nauseam. We have not had audits coming out of the Audit Department of public spending. I took the opportunity to check with the Auditor General when last were the estimates audited. Dates as far back as 1978 are being thrown around.
My golly, government in 2004, 2005, spent $153 million more than was budgeted to them without authority of the National Assembly. That's what you would say and you will further say who on earth gave them that authority to do. And if you take this argument further, you will say well that blew all the deficit projections for that year because of course if you projected a certain deficit and you come up with this kind of additional expenditure that just was done.
And you will further ask the bombshell question, where did they get the money from, where did they get the $153 million from that is already spent. And the answer could only be tax revenues and/or loans. Which one? Or grants, all three, or sale of assets. So but again none of which was authorized. And if you go to the second appropriation you would say that for that year, that for 2005/2006 it was $83 million.
This is a serious serious serious matter and if we are to get this country right, we need to get the finances under control. For too long we have been languishing all sorts of numbers; the national debt, we don't know where it is etc., all sorts of things. We need to fix that problem and fix it now.
We can't treat it like a slush fund, we can't treat it carelessly. We can't usurp the power of the legislature. 29 people were elected, next election is 31. the Honorable Minister of Finance has all the authority but under the law and his colleagues in the Legislature including us, must hold the Executive to task for the expenditure of this country, no ifs buts or maybes. It doesn't matter if it is PUP, UDP, VIP, NRP, or whatever party it doesn't matter - the rule is the same.
I want the auditor to put a statement and I call on this Honorable House to demand that and I will go even further and say if we cannot get it, I will move a motion to do an investigation by the Senate into the reasons why the Auditor General and the Accountant General cannot or refuse to put a statement to this House of the reasons why we don't have the audit for the government's accounts period."
And while Hulse spoke for the non-aligned membership in the upper House, PUP and UDP Senators weighed in with political spins. UDP Senator Diego Bol said the supplements were business as usual, but he was braced by PUP Senator Eamon Courtenay. Here's that exchange.
Senator Diego Bol,
"I would have to make the assumption that maybe this is what the architect of growth economics means when he uses the phrase, 'measured deviation from orthodoxy.' Maybe that is what it means. You put out a budget, you don't live up to the budget, you overspent your budget."
Senator Eamon Courtenay,
"Nobody is proud of that. The point of the matter is if we were to go back in history, when the other side sat and stood on this side, they never once brought a supplementary for approval of this Honorable House. But we have brought them here and as Senator Hulse pointed out, for the year 2006/2007, details are put there as to what the over expenditure was for. Those over expenditures were made by public officers."
