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The board of the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT for Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba had conversations with the three public entities’ Executive and Island Councils in which focus was on the execution of the 2012 and 2013 budgets, financial statements and the current status of their financial management, a press release from CFT said. “On all the public entities the financial management is developing in a positive direction, but still remains vulnerable,” the press release read.
The Island Council of Saba is expected to adopt a budget for 2013 this week, before the deadline. It concerns a balanced budget in which not all aspects of the
results of the governmental deliberation on financial relations have yet been taken into consideration, as the deliberations only took place earlier this month.
These adaptations, mostly as a consequence of the indexation of the so-called “free benefits,” will be processed later via a budget adaptation. As far as improvements in the area of financial management are concerned, Saba is taking the lead, compared to the other public entities.
St. Eustatius’ budget shows a surplus concerning the compensation of a deficit from the past. The Island Council will adopt this budget and channel it via
the board to the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations BZK before November 15. The adoption of a balanced budget for 2013 was one of the criteria CFT laid down for St. Eustatius for CFT to be able to advise the BZK Minister not to prolong the Preceding Supervision VT as of January 1, 2013, the press release said. The board is still in discussion with the public entity on financial statements for 2011 being submitted before deadlines. The expectation is expressed that a positive advice can be given to the BZK Minister within a couple of weeks. This Preceding Supervision VT no longer will be applicable as
of January 1, 2013.
Because so much time was invested in the budgeting and financial-statement process, Bonaire unfortunately was not able to deal with all the financial-management points that were agreed on with the board this year, the press release said. Taking the new governmental system into consideration, Bonaire is facing the challenge to form an administrative system in such a manner that the needed capacity can be unlocked. The agreements made as of 10-10-10 concerning the increase in the pension age to 65 years and the introduction of the “middle wage system” also were discussed, the press release
concluded.
Source: The Daily Herald October 25, 2012