The PUP has taken out a lawsuit against Prime Minister Dean Barrow and Financial Secretary Joe Waight for breaching the Finance and Audit Reform Act.
The problem - according to the PUP - is what are known as General Revenue Supplementary Appropriations. According to the PUP - these must be approved by Parliament before money is spent, but the standard practice is to bring the supplementary after the money is spent.
Here at 7News we have observed this as the standard practice going back over PUP and UDP administrations. But, the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Julius Espat says its wrong and it has to stop. He spoke to the press today:
Hon. Julius Espat, Chairman - Public Accounts
"We believe that the prime minister has been breaching the constitution and the finance and audit reform act since he became prime minister by issues supplementary allocations in the house for money that he had spent previously. The constitution does not allow it and more specifically the finance and audit reform act does not allow it and we have seen that he continuously uses the supplementary allocations in the house since I was elected 2012 I have noticed it, but we have found out that it has been done before since 2008."
Reporter
"So you are asking for a permanent injunction?"
Hon. Julius Espat, Chairman - Public Accounts
"The permanent injunction does not have anything to do with the budget, so we are not saying that the budget cannot be presented. We are asking for an injunction that they cannot use the supplementary allocations if they don't come to the house first and if it does not follow the rules of the finance and audit reform act and if they don't follow the constitution. It was done in this time frame because we are now preparing for a budget. Tomorrow we should have been in parliament listening to the budget. But they are not prepared. They haven't been able to publish the document. The information that was supposed to have been given today to us will not be given until next week. So instead of having that 2 week or 3-week period in which we prepare to debate a budget which is supposedly the most sacred document of any government when it pertains to how you spend the people's money. We will only have 10 days now. How can we even consider, maybe only Jules can. But we can't consider to properly analyse a budget in 10 days. That is unacceptable. So I understand people are saying why are we doing it now. But we are here now and we want to move forward."
Espat says the PUP is prepared to take this case all the way to the CCJ.
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