PHILIPSBURG–Finance Minister Ardwell Irion said on Wednesday that the draft 2020 budget is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2020.
He told reporters during the Council of Ministers press briefing that the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT and the Council of Advice have both raised a number of concerns regarding the draft budget that government will be required to address immediately.
The budget, which had been handled by the former finance minister, had been sent to CFT and the Council of Advice. Government’s Finance Department is in the process of addressing these concerns so that steps can be taken to be taken to finalise the budget, Irion noted. “We visualize the completion to run into the first quarter of 2020,” he said.
A Council of Ministers meeting was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon where the Finance Department was expected to make a detailed presentation on the budget in its current state.
Irion assured that the completion of the budget is “high on the list of priorities” of the interim government. “It is this government’s intention is to pick up from where the previous government left off to avoid any further delays,” Irion said, noting that the budget is still to be presented to Parliament.
In an unrelated issue, regarding government’s current liquidity situation, Irion said he had been informed last week that government had NAf. 20 million in its coffers. He said government’s income usually experiences a spike at the start of the year with the payment of motor vehicle taxes, which motorists can start paying at the start of each new year. The spike subsides around May, when income goes down and remains flat until the high season, when it picks up again.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/92826-draft-budget-expected-to-be-completed-first-quarter-2020
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