Need to Carefully Examine Proposals Regarding Emilio Wilson Estate
The Prime Minister of St. Maarten the Honorable Sarah Wescot-Williams expressed her hope that there will be a speedy and conclusive approval of the 2014 Budget when deliberations begin in Parliament on Monday. The PM also commented on the purchase of the Emilio Wilson Estate.
"It is my fervent wish that we can get the Budget approved by Parliament as soon as possible and I hope that we do not have a repeat of 2013. Last year was a bad example but this year we hope to have a functioning Budget that will allow us to move forward with governing. Parliament has scheduled the handling for this Monday in a Central Committee setting and once that is completed deliberations will then move to the public meeting. The Minister of Finance the Honorable Martin Hassink will have the initial presentation to Parliament followed by more wide-scale interactions between Government and Parliament.
The CFT recommended that Government be given until the 16th to have an approved Budget so if Parliament starts the handling of the Budget on Monday the hope is that we will be able to have the Budget approved within the time frame give or take a few days. There is a balanced Budget now in accordance with CFT laws and the CFT will vet and approve the Budget after the Parliamentary approvals’ stated the Prime Minister.
Wescot-Williams also stressed that the 2014 Budget is very lean and trimmed down due to the financial climate and projections on income for 2014: "The Budget 2014 is a very lean one based on the collection pattern and what it has yielded, based on the economic growth in terms of revenues, and based on Government income. Considering all of this, this year’s Budget would be at 426 million Guilders. The Justice area is very much an area where we need considerable investments. We need to provide a higher level of security to our people and this costs considerable money. So we are in a critical situation as a Government right now and there is much that we have and would like to do but we are at a time where we do not much room to maneuver. We are in a very financially challenging time and therefore are carefully considering creating the type of environment and activities that give the people of St. Maarten the type of opportunities they need, with Government attracting investments that the we need to focus on," stressed the PM.
The Prime Minister also commented on the purchasing of the Emilio Wilson Estate: "We definitely need to look carefully at the Emilio Wilson Estate. The question is: can Government buy it outright? Government does not have that money in cash so the funds necessary for the purchasing of the Estate needs to come in the form of a loan. We therefore need to have a hard proposal in place with a well-motivated project in order to attract a loan for that purchase. Once that is done all stakeholders need to examine the way forward on researching if there are employment and income opportunities in addition to preservation for example. Will the income go to Government or will it go to another entity? We need to be very clear on what the plan is for that area," concluded the Prime Minister