'These questions were necessary since government passed three budgets totalling over 1 billion dollars and they have overspent and reallocated funds in the last three budgets without coming to the House of Assembly to be rectified,' said Hon Andrew A. Fahie (R1). Photo: VINO/File

Premier and Minister of Finance Dr The Honourable D. Orlando Smith has been accused of not providing detailed and accurate answers to questions posed by the Opposition in Parliament. Photo: VINO/File

He was speaking to the media during a break in the Fourth Sitting of the Fourth Session of the Second House of Assembly yesterday.

"These questions were necessary since government passed three budgets totalling over 1 billion dollars and they have overspent and reallocated funds in the last three budgets without coming to the House of Assembly to be rectified," he said.

He said, in other words, the chequebook has not been balanced in the House of Assembly for the past three years.

"So for the past three years the government has not balanced the territory's chequebook and in answering one of the questions about the total advance warrants by the Minister of Finance to allow the extra money to be spent other than what was budgeted for in the years 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014,, the answers given by the Minister of Finance were given on a single page and the figures reflected $89,118.31 for 2011, $1,575,959.71 in 2012, $1,639,566.54 in 2013 and $2,723,892.79 in 2014," he said.

"Given that the question asked for details for each expenditure for each year we insisted that the Minister of Finance answer the question in full and provide the details as requested in the question. Just late last week through the House of Assembly we received the details. This is long after the House of Assembly had adjourned. The total being provided now for 2012, 2013 and 2014 were significantly higher than the answers originally provided to the House of Assembly by the Minister of Finance. These figures for 2012 were now $4,740,959.71 which is $3,165,000 more than the answer originally given in the House of Assembly by the Minister of Finance,” he said.

“For 2013 the figures were now $25,990,766.25 which is $24,351,190.21 more than the original amount provided by the Minister of Finance. In 2014 the total was now $42,862,262,85 which is $40,138,370.06 more than the original amount provided in the answer,” he said.

He added that the Government is now returning to the House of Assembly for extra expenditures for 2012 which total more than $33 million for 2012.

“These actions are alarming. Having two and three different answers to the same questions raise many red flags. Concerns are heightened with regards to proper record keeping by this administration and also we are concerned with the answers being given by minister in terms of the incompleteness and inaccuracy of the answers and really where we are financially. Some ministers are claiming that we have savings but how could we have savings when the books are not being balanced and there are no Treasury reports?” he asked.

“So we continue to be concerned [that what we are given doesn’t match what they are saying],” he said. “If you cannot get your books balanced how can you go ahead and promote that you have good financial standing?” he asked.

Hon. Fahie has previously accused the NDP government of being corrupt.