Over $183B expenditure for January to September

– Min. Edghill says proof of APNU+AFC squander

The PPP/C Government on Thursday laid a Statement of Expenditure for the period January 1 to September 30, 2020 totalling $183,156,687,000 billion before the National Assembly in keeping with constitutional requirements.

The Statement laid by Minister of Public Works, the Hon. Bishop Juan Edghill represented $146,522,438,000 billion in current expenditure and $36,634,249,000 billion in capital expenditure.

The expenditure will form part of the $329.5 billion appropriation for 2020 that is expected to be passed in the National Assembly today.

In an invited comment Minister Edghill told DPI that the Statement of Expenditure was substantive evidence of the APNU-AFC’s reckless and illegal misuse of funds carried out in the 15 months after the no-confidence motion of December 21, 2018, and the five months after the General and Regional Elections of March 2, 2020.

The no-confidence motion mandated that the entire APNU+AFC Cabinet resign.

Instead, Minister Edghill said, what followed was

“a journey of unprecedented litigations, which incidentally cost taxpayers hundred[s] of millions of dollars.”

Further, when the then government was unsuccessful, it still sought to stay in power, despite international conventions and best practices.

“For the months since the no-confidence [motion]the APNU+AFC Administration expended $419.2 billion and, during that period, Parliament only met thrice,” Minister Edghill said.

While Article 219(3) allows for expenditure on public services after Parliament is dissolved the Minister explained that

“In [the] Statement of Expenditure that I laid before the National Assembly there was expenditure incurred that was beyond public services.”

He explained that a contract totalling US$10,466,711 million funded through a loan by the Islamic bank was entered into in June 2020,

after they knew they had lost the election and was unwilling to give up power.”

Minister Edghill noted that there was also a withdrawal of GY$10.8 billion from the Consolidated Fund which was disbursed to the Guyana Power and Light (GPL).

Further, there was the signing and awarding of new capital projects totalling $826.8 million with BK International for the construction of a school at Yarowkabra in Region Four.  The acts of the previous Administration also included several other civil works contracts, including the $1.6 billion Infectious Diseases Hospital at Liliendaal and $ 20.1 billion in rollover projects from 2019 to 2020, including those signed as late as December 31, 2019. Minister Edghill said the evidence clearly validates the concerns that the PPP/C have been raising in the public sphere.