His Excellency Governor Eugene Holiday and Minister of Finance Honourable Hiro Shigemoto signed into law the countries 2011 budget on July 7, 2011.
The Naf.420.916.597 million budget is Naf.23.526.328 million less than the one that was approved by Parliament on December 23, 2010. The amount at that time was Naf.444.442.925 million.
Out of the Naf.420 million guilder budget, close to Naf.120 million (Naf.119.435.771) will be capital investments.
Government will be allowed to borrow Naf.117.334.209 million guilders for 2011.
According to the Minister of Finance, the Financial Supervisory Committee CFT was waiting on two developments in order to finalize the handling and approval of any loan requests from the Government of Sint Maarten.
The first condition, the 2011 country budget had to be passed in Parliament and signed into law, and secondly, that the SOAB had to present a report about the collective sector of Sint Maarten as well as the calculation of the interest norm for Government and its collective sector.
The collective sector of Sint Maarten includes Government, the Foundation Upkeep Sports Facilities, Foundation of Government Buildings, the SZV as well as two other foundations.
The interest norm for 2011 has been calculated at approximately Naf.27.9 million of which the collective sector to date has interests costs totally Naf.12.9 million which in essence means that there is room for some Naf.15 million in interests costs within the collective sector.
"The SOAB finalized its report on July 4, 2011, and this should have been directly sent to the CFT. The Government of Sint Maarten is now waiting to hear how much longer it will take for the CFT to finalize the loan requests that Government has submitted for approval.
"There must be clear rules and regulations between all members of the collective sector and Government (Minister of Finance). Any borrowing of monies will require the prior approval of the Minister of Finance and this matter will be addressed by my person with the various foundations and entities which fall under the collective sector of Sint Maarten," Minister of Finance Hon. Hiro Shigemoto said on Sunday.