Minister of Finance Hiro Shigemoto says that Sint Maarten is not looking towards Holland to subsidize its budget, and the country does not have any skeletons in its closet.
Shigemoto said that the meeting with the VVD Faction Leader Stef Blok which also included Vice Prime Minister Theo Heyliger, head of the Sint Maarten delegation, centered on the new status of Sint Maarten and matters related to the 2011 budget.
"Sint Maarten has a plan B which is being finalized and will be presented to the CFT Financial Supervisory Commission as well as the Council of Ministers of Sint Maarten and thereafter the Parliament.
"The message from the VVD faction is quite clear and that is that the country will have to solve its own problems which will require measures on our behalf to cover the deficit before December 15, 2010.
"The Vice Prime Minister and I are both very confident that the country can and will solve this problem which this government has inherited but it will undoubtedly require both cost cutting and income generating measures to counter the perceived deficit of Naf.130 million.
"After reviewing the CFT’s advice in depth and concisely, we have determined that the perceived aforementioned deficit is lower due to the CFT double counting of expenditures in the Ministry of Justice as well as not accounting for income on the side of the Social Economic Initiative (SEI) projects.
"The CFT has also not taken into consideration the low projection of income for 2011 (based on the realized income up to and including the month of October 2010 which was not available to the CFT at the time they made and submitted their advice on the draft budget 2011). This will also be further elucidated to the CFT via letter," Minister Hiro Shigemoto explained in-depth.
Minister Shigemoto explained to the VVD Faction about the deficit of the 2011 budget as well as the two-pronged approach whereby Sint Maarten is coming with a plan to eliminate the budget deficit, but due to the current economic situation as well as the feasibility of introducing measures to solve the deficit which was inherited by the new government, the country seeks some flexibility based on the global economic reality which is not only being experienced by Caribbean countries, but also various European nations.
"We are merely exploring the possibilities of Holland allowing Sint Maarten in the interim some flexibility of the existing financial regulations which would allow the country in the short-term period to have a small deficit on the budget along with a multi-annual plan within which the country would have a balanced budget considering all of the surprises which were discovered in the Ministries which were neglected over the years by the former Netherlands Antilles Central Government," the Minister of Finance Shigemoto explained from The Hague on Tuesday.
The Minister of Finance also briefed Blok on the background related to the 2011 budget. "The present draft 2011 budget was submitted by the interim Executive Council which was in office for some five days. They met the draft budget from the previous National Alliance led-government which had not been submitted to the CFT upon the mutually agreed upon deadline of October 1, 2010.
"After a review of the letter of the CFT to the Dutch Kingdom Council of Ministers wherein it was heavily underscored that Sint Maarten’s government at the time was not holding itself to important mutually agreed upon deadlines for submission of documents, the five-day interim Executive Council submitted the draft 2011 budget in order to meet the deadline," Minister Hiro Shigemoto explained.
Minister Shigemoto says that Sint Maarten doesn’t have any skeletons in its closets. "Challenges were discussed thoroughly throughout the negotiations for Country status. The plans of approach (Justice and Census office) are all accounted for in the budgets 2011 and the multi-annual budget 2012-2015.
Minister Shigemoto concluded that the delegation headed by Vice Prime Minister Heyliger will continue with its program of visits and continue to work on fostering good relations with Sint Maarten’s counterparts in this part of the Kingdom.