Based on the financial act public entities Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (Wet FinBES) the minister of Internal Affairs and Kingdom Relations (Binnenlandse Zaken Koninkrijksrelaties – BZK) approved the budgets 2011 for the public entities Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba. This has been made known to the Island Councils of the concerning public entities in a letter dated 28th of March 2011.
Advices Cft followed
Mister Donner, minister of BZK, has indicated to approve the budgets 2011, considering some reservations which the Board of financial supervision (College financieel toezicht – Cft) have included in their advices presented to the minster of BZK midst December 2010. Based on a review of the draft budgets according to the criteria in the Financial act for the BES, the Cft has given a careful positive advice subject to certain reservations. These reservations have to do with eventual unforeseen budget consequences due to the changes in political structure since the 10th of October 2010, which now will have to be processed via the budget amendments. This especially applies for eventual compensation of health care premiums. This topic, just like pension premiums, is set on the agenda for the management meeting ‘financial relations BES’ with the minister of BZK and a delegation of the public entities on the 31st of March 2011. Another important topic which will be discussed during the next meeting, concerns the amount of the discretionary disbursement for 2012 and the following years.
Budget Sizes
Because of the transition since the 10th of October 2011 the budgets of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba are the first budgets as public entities within the Dutch state. As a consequence to the agreed on division between the public entities and the Netherlands the size of the budgets is substantially smaller. The approved budget for Bonaire amounts more than $ 49,4 million, the budget for Sint Eustatius more than $ 12,4 million and Saba has a budget of almost $ 7,3 million. The budgets 2011 are also the first ones under the regime of the Cft which may not show a shortage.