RHON­DA RAM­BAL­LY

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an says funds are re­leased to min­istries once the process is fol­lowed.He was re­spond­ing to ques­tions about claims by Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er on Wednes­day that his min­istry had not re­ceived funds to con­duct work through­out the coun­try even though he had made nu­mer­ous re­quests.Dook­er­an said: "What is avail­able to min­istries to­day are more than suf­fi­cient to meet the de­mands that were ap­proved in Par­lia­ment in the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Act.

"How­ev­er, there has been a process for the dis­burse­ment of funds that re­quire the line min­istries to be able to ar­tic­u­late what­ev­er trans­fers they wish to make at this end of the fis­cal year from one vote to a next vote and that has to be processed be­tween the line min­istries and the Min­istry of Fi­nance and I be­lieve that is what is be­ing ref­er­eed to by the non-re­lease of funds."

Dook­er­an was speak­ing at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.Dur­ing a tour of Bam­boo Set­tle­ment #1, Val­sayn, on Wednes­day with St Joseph MP Her­bert Vol­ney, Warn­er told the me­dia his min­istry had not re­ceived "a sin­gle nick­el to do any works."Warn­er said: "I talk to the Fi­nance Min­is­ter al­most two, three times per week" and his re­ply was al­ways 'to­mor­row and to­mor­row and to­mor­row.'"Dook­er­an as­sured the funds were there to be re­leased once the process was fol­lowed with alacrity.

Re­fer­ring to Warn­er's sit­u­a­tion, Dook­er­an said: "I think what you are re­fer­ring to is a spe­cif­ic loan arrange­ment that is be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed be­tween the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board and at this point in time that arrange­ment is be­ing dealt with by the NIB as the source of funds for that par­tic­u­lar mat­ter."He said with re­spect to all oth­er mat­ters, "there are re­al­ly no prob­lems."