At the Senate yesterday, the Government Senators tabled and passed the General Revenue Supplementary Appropriation Bill of 2016-2017. The bill regularizes the unbudgeted public spending of some 13.9 million dollars that the government already disbursed and used as far back as 2016.
The Government takes these types of bills to the House every 3 months for use of Petrocaribe funds, and in the use of those 13.9 million dollars, some of it went to relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Earl in August 2016, as well as Belize Infrastructure Limited for different construction project, and the Barrow Administration’s Mother’s Day Cheer.
But, the debate heated up when the Opposition accused the Government of violating the Finance and Audit Reform Act and the Fiscal Transparency and Responsibility Regulations of 2010. In the end, the UDP Majority in the Senate passed the bill, and dismissed the Opposition’s concerns as politicking for the sake of it.
So, the PUP Senators, Eamon Courtenay and Valerie Woods, called a press conference to state their case as to why in their opinion, the Barrow Administration has been carrying on with public spending in a manner that is unlawful. Here’s how they explained it:
Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"A supplementary appropriation bill came before the Senate after it had been passed by the House of Representatives and the purpose of that supplementary was to approve spending for 2016-2017 and the first point we made was why so late? There is a procedure under the finance and audit reform act and the constitution where supplementary spending, excess spending require what needs to be done and this was clearly not with compliance with it. Secondly, the majority of the spending first of all under cap 2 dealt with expenditure for Hurricane Earl which was from August 2016 and they are now seeking approval in 2018 and then of course there was a massive overspending by Belize Infrastructure Limited bill which they seem to seeking approval for now. All of this was very unusual because of the significant delay and the lack of details and so we called for the financial secretary to come. He came in committee and all he did was one, confirm as I said the noncompliance and two promise to provide us the details so we can understand exactly what these overspending was done for."
Valerie Woods - PUP Senator
"Yesterday the explanation given was basically its a slippage, we just got busy and we missed deadlines. I believe the leader of government business specific reference was he concedes that we have missed deadlines. It is important for Belizeans to understand that very admission is also admitting that the government had violated the law."
Eamon Courtenay
"In 2016 there were other supplementaries dealing with these same things so this is just an addition to what has already been approved by way of supplementary."
Valerie Woods
"And for the period September 2016 to March 2017 but also understand that in August of 2016, August 31st to be precise there was a Senate meeting and there were supplementary bills and Senators again raised the alarm at that Senate. It has to stop.”
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