‘Easy approval’ of $11.2B for constitutional agencies; Jagdeo hopes National Budget will enjoy same

The first sitting of the National Assembly ended with an easy and unhindered approval of over $11.2 billion for 22 constitutional agencies.

The estimates for the constitutional agencies will be from the period of approval to December 31, 2020.

It will now form part of the National 2020 Budget which Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said on Tuesday is expected to be completed and presented to the National Assembly by next week.

The estimates, as submitted by the agencies, were not changed by the government and were passed untouched by the House.

Jagdeo who also holds responsibility for the finance sector said he expects the National Budget to be debated by the House and passed with the same ease, possibly by the end of September.

“We are hoping that the budget will be passed with a shorten time table given the exigencies for a budget at this time… we hope that the budget will be in place by the end of September,” Jagdeo told the News Room.

The last national budget was passed in 2018 by the former APNU+AFC Government which was later toppled by a No-Confidence Motion.

There has been no other budget since then with the previous Parliament being dissolved a year later in December 2019.

The agencies and their proposed budgets are as follows:

Parliament Office proposed budget totals $1.7 billion, office of the Auditor General with a proposed budget of $908 million, Public and Police Service Commission budget totals $150 million, $117 million for Teaching Service Commission, Guyana Elections Commission will get $4.9 billion, Supreme Court is pegged to receive $2.4 billion, Chamber of Director of Public Prosecution will receive $226 million.

In addition, the Office of the Ombudsman current estimate stands at $70 million, Public Service Appellate Tribunal will receive $40 million and the Ethnic Relations Commission will receive $220 million. The Judicial Service Commission Estimates stands at $10 million, Indigenous People’s Commission at $24 million, Human Rights Commission at $25,000, Rights of the Child Commission at $46 million, Women and Gender Equality Commission at $58 million and the Public Procurement Commission at $206 million.