National alliance Member of Parliament George Pantophlet is trying to understand what was presented to them in a meeting of the central committee held on Wednesday November 8, 2010. The meeting which was convened behind closed doors upon the request of leader of the National Alliance Senator William Marlin to discuss the appointment of the Secretary General (Griffier).
During this meeting of the Central Committee members were presented with a one page document and told that it was an amendment to the 2011 Budget. There were no explanatory or supplementary documents accompanying it. I don’t know where those figures came from. I know that article 14 of the Rules of Order guarantees the independence of Parliament from government with regards to establishing its own Budget. This is done through a draft Ordinance by the Presidium which consists of the chairperson and vice chair of parliament. Also before this draft can be presented to the members of Parliament it has to be signed by the Governor and the responsible minister. On several occasions I have asked the chairperson about the 2011 Budget. But even the chair did not know its progress. It must be realized that we are now in a dualistic system. Government cannot decide Parliament’s Budget. Furthermore let me quote the headline appearing in one of our daily newspapers that said "CFT gives government six weeks for expert study on Draft Budget. It continues "The Committee for Financial supervision CFT has advised government to have an independent external accountancy firm conduct a study immediately to determine the minimal cost that will arise from Government’s existing policies" end of quote. Government has been given a maximum time frame of six weeks for the study to be performed". So in the meantime maybe I can consider the one page document or amendment to the Budget 2011 inadmissible.