Positive results in fourth quarterly report 2014

The Daily Herald writes that Public Entity Saba has been doing well financially in the last quarter of 2014 as it realised a surplus of US $894,000 which was more than the anticipated US $780,000. Saba closed off 2014 with a revenue position of some US $12.2 million while the expenditures amounted to about US $11.3 million it was stated in the fourth quarterly report of 2014 which was sent to the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT last month.

The public entity had already indicated earlier that it anticipated a positive end result. The exact result will be confirmed in the annual account, after which a proposal will be sent to the Island Council to determine what will be done with the positive result, which is expected to improve the government’s financial position.

The cash position has increased from more than US $2.8 million early 2014 to a level of more than US $4.6 million.

The CFT noted however that a number of special allowances of more than US $1.3 million of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment was included in this amount. These funds haven’t been spent as yet. When these amounts are corrected, the cash position still shows a positive result of US $0.4 million. This was “not a comfortable margin to execute a regular management,” stated CFT Chairman Age Bakker in a letter to the Executive Council on February 26, 2015. “A close watch will have to be kept on the cash position, and where possible strengthened to deal with future fluctuations in the cash flow,” Bakker stated, who was positive about the fact that Saba had complied with all goals to improve financial management, as had been agreed upon with the CFT.