PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – Honourable Minister of Finance Hiro Shigemoto has forwarded Budget 2011 Solution for initial vetting to the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT.
Preliminary discussions have been held between the Minister of Finance with the CFT Secretariat about the proposed solutions to balance the 2011 budget.
"I am looking forward to the CFT reviewing the solutions in a technical meeting with the Finance Department, and once an indication is given that the solutions are considered plausible by the CFT, the next step would be to send them to the Council of Ministers, Council of Advice and then on to Parliament.
"It is imperative that the solutions brought forward by the Ministry of Finance are properly discussed with the CFT prior to going through the process of having them approved by the three aforementioned institutions," Honourable Minister of Finance Hiro Shigemoto explained on Thursday.
The Minister added that the process has been a very challenging one since the Ministry of Finance also had to find budgetary space to cover an additional Naf.15 million as a result of having to pay teachers and civil servants the balance of the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) of 3.3 per cent as agreed upon with two of the unions retroactive to January 1, 2011 and to be paid out in July 2011.
"There was a delay in the process by having to resolve the COLA issue and then to find a solution to the perceived Naf.30 million deficit based on the economic growth figures that the CFT is using.
"We explained this to the CFT that we would have difficulty in meeting the February 17 deadline to have a balanced budget approved by Parliament," Minister of Finance Shigemoto further pointed out.
A letter was sent to Dutch Minister of Interior and Kingdom Relations Jan Pieter Hendrik Donner informing him of the current state of affairs and what path has been taken to balance the country budget.
The team that the Minister of Finance is heading who have been working on finding solutions for the deficit comprises of the Cabinet of the Minster of Finance, the Secretary General and her staff of the Finance Department, in particular FBB, Martin Hassink, and the Secretary Generals of six other ministries.
"Everybody have been working hard to resolve this budget issue for our country. It is not about who needs to be vindicated or who was a civil servant responsible for what in the past. It should be explained that in the previous system as in the present, the budget was and is the end responsibility of the then Commissioner of Finance and the Executive Council and now the Minister of Finance and the Council of Ministers respectively.
"It is about bringing solutions to the table and working in the best interest of Sint Maarten despite having been put in a difficult position with having to build a country from scratch without attaining additional resources with which to do so or providing for a transitional period within which Sint Maarten could build itself adequately and become a country.
"It is about playing the hand we have been dealt and trying to make the best of it. It’s about taking one’s responsibility seriously and particularly acting in the best interest of the country," Honourable Minister of Finance Hiro Shigemoto pointed out on Thursday.