Non-executive ERC received over $ 500M during 2011 – 2018
Kaieteur News – Several discrepancies have been revealed within the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) following independent research by Kaieteur News and the latest discovery pin points that it received over $ 500M in budget allocations while non-executive for seven years.
The ERC was established on March 8, 2002, with the goal of promoting ethnic harmony and security in Guyana.
The non-political body made up of representatives of religious bodies, labor movements and the private business sector operated until 2011 when its mandate, and by extension the work of its commissioners, ended. It became operational again on February 22, 2018, when it was reconstituted and saw 10 new commissioners swear in by former president David Granger. Details going forward are clearly set out on the Commission’s website.
Despite being inactive between 2011 and 2018, budget estimates, seen by this announcement, reveal that the Commission would have received $ 504M in those seven years, leaving two significant questions: What was the spending spent on money ?; a: Who presided over the expenditure?
Based on the budget estimates, in 2012, the year after becoming inactive, it received a budget allocation of $ 99.4M. In 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 the allocations were $ 49.9M, $ 63.7M, $ 43.1M, $ 81.4M and $ 50.5M respectively. Then in 2018, the allocation was $ 115.7M.
In addition, post-2015 budget estimates show little information about what the allocations provided for.
However, this announcement previously indicated that the previous coalition government in 2015 amended the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA), which allowed constitutional agencies like the ERC to be independent with their allocations. Prior to the coalition amendment, their budget allocations were under scrutiny by their subject Minister.
The PPP government recently moved to amend the Act once again stating that the coalition amendment removed billions of dollars of Parliamentary scrutiny that could only be spent by law on scrutiny. The Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Ashni Singh, during the introduction of the Bill, “The amendment (by the Coalition) set out a two stage process whereby the constitutional agencies budget would be brought to the National Assembly, considered and approved by the Assembly, and ‘to be incorporated into the national budget, which would then be submitted to the House for consideration, at which time the constitutional agencies budget would not be reconsidered, but would be part of the budget national. ”
Its amendment has removed that two-stage process and now allows for a single process of submission to the National Assembly since the Bill was passed.
In addition, ERC Commissioner Haji Roshan Khan is of the firm conviction that there is an urgent need for governmental rather than private audit which may exclude where the value of public money is dropping.
Kaieteur News contacted ERC Chairman Reverend John Smith last Thursday about anomalies highlighted by Khan. He had promised to issue a press release to address the allegations. It was noted that the statement would be published the following day but none was published.
In another attempt to get a response from the Chair, he reached this announcement again yesterday and was told that a response is currently being prepared which must be checked for maximum accuracy.