Government, Parliament and Advisory Council informed
Minister of Finance Hon. Hiro Shigemoto says that the Ministry of Finance is working with the Committee of Financial Supervision CFT to finalize the 2012 national budget.
"The Ministry of Finance is currently working closely with the CFT to work out a few technical adjustments and this process, I expect to see rounded off in January leading to a positive advice from the CFT," Minister of Finance Hon. Hiro Shigemoto said on Tuesday.
In the meantime Parliament, the Governor and the General Audit Chamber have been informed that the process to complete the national budget and have it submitted to Parliament by the December 15 timeline will not be met taking into consideration the aforementioned.
The 2012 national budget presented to the CFT is Naf.432,549,600 million while the 2011 budget is Naf.420,916,597 million.
"The new timeline that I am working with where the country’s budget is presented to Parliament is the latter part of January 2012, and finalized by the latest, March 1, 2012.
"In the interim, the 2011 budget will be the budget used until the 2012 budget has been passed by Parliament and signed into law by the Governor and the Minister of Finance.
"Every effort is being made by the Government apparatus and those working in the Ministry of Finance to have all processes and systems in place in order to be able to completely comply with the Financial Supervision Compatability Law for Curacao and Sint Maarten.
"As everybody is aware, the country is not able to have a deficit. During the first budget year cycle of 2011, the Ministry of Finance and the CFT worked closely together and presented a balanced budget taking into consideration the various challenges that came with the transition from Island Territory to Country.
"The Ministry of Finance is working diligently to ensure that the systems and processes are in place and lessons learnt in the previous budgets are reflected in the 2013 national budget which I intend to start working on as early as February 2012," Minister of Finance Hon. Hiro Shigemoto concluded.