“Tynes: Govt. wrong not to hold mid-year budget debate” – The Tribune 18.03.2019

Excerpt from this article; “FORMER chief parliamentary clerk Maurice Tynes has criticized the handling of the decision not to hold a debate in the House of Assembly on the mid-term budget statement, telling The Tribune the government does not own parliament.

Mr. Tynes was asked to comment on the government’s decision to not hold a debate – an unprecedented departure from previous administrations that has drawn ire of the Official Opposition, as well as FNM party insiders.

‘You don’t do it arbitrarily like it was done this year,’ Mr. Tynes said, ‘it has to be done with discussion with the opposition.  The government party does not own the Parliament, they may control it but then all civil democracies have a discussion between the government and the opposition, and if you’re going to change the rule it has to be done in discussion, not done arbitrarily.’

For his part, however, Mr. Tynes said he always felt it was ‘stupid’ to hold two debates within a three-month cycle, as no other country had this policy.”

First observation is that if Mr. Tynes finds “it stupid to hold two debates within a three-moth cycle”, then eliminating one is not so arbitrary but that is a totally different story, as it would appear that the opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) has ceased upon this opportunity to accuse the government of some more wrong-doing; implying that the Free National Movement (FNM) has something to hide despite the facts that the mid-term report has been tabled for the opposition to review, despite the fact that the government released six-month reports on the country’s finances for all to see; outlining borrowing, debt payment and government liability but even with this being put into the public domain there seems to be other problems as the opposition objects to this move.

First, the debate of the mid-year budget statement is not mandated by any parliamentary rule or law unless there “were supplementary appropriate bills or borrowing”, in this case there was not but there was the issue of a contingency line of credit in the amount one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000) to be used for disaster relief, the point being that this money does not really affect our finances in a negative or positive way unless this line of credit is accessed for disaster relief, so at this point this money does not ‘exist’ as far as the mid-term budget or the budget to be tabled in the few months is concerned.

What is simply amazing about what the opposition Progressive Liberal Party and others protest at this time is a Free National Movement (FM) government deviating from a precedent sent in place by the Hon. Hubert Ingraham during the 2007/2008 budget cycle, it is odd that before 1992, when the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) governed for twenty-five (25) consecutive years, they never saw fit to inform the people to this extent about the country’s finances but now seek to call the removal of this step a move of non-transparency and lack of accountability; this is simply laughable.

So it would appear that the opposition stormed out of Parliament to protest a contingency fund for disaster relief and it is astounding that it would also appear the this Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) opposition party does not seem to understand the country’s finances; which leaves a lot to be questioned and desired  but answers a lot of questions as to the dismal state of the economy under the Progressive Liberal Party government and Philip ‘Brave Davis.

The Progressive Liberal Party fails for one reason, it is within their nature.

END