Saba recovering with Dutch pre-financing

The Government of Saba has re­ceived approval to start reconstruction works following Hurricanes Irma and Maria.
An amount of US $500,000 is being made available as pre-financing.

Preliminary es­timations set the damage in Saba at US $27 million. The Committee for Financial Supervision CFT ap­proved an amendment to Saba’s 2017 budget on Octo­ber 16, to facilitate the start of the reconstruction work on damaged infrastructure. Saba sent a budget amend­ment to the CFT on October 12. CFT’s response was published on the CFT website this week.

“Hurricanes Irma and Maria have caused great damage to Saba. According to a preliminary estimate, the dam­age amounts to about US $27 million. The Ministry of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations BZK is consult­ing with Saba and various departments in The Hague how to carry out the reconstruction,” CFT Chairman Raymond Gradus stated in a letter to Saba Island Gov­ernor Jonathan Johnson.

The Saba Government wants to start with the recon­struction works in anticipation of definite decision-tak­ing by the BZK Ministry regarding the recovery aid. An amount of $500,000 is being made available on the bud­get item disaster management.

The BZK Ministry had already committed to transfer $500,000 to Saba in the short term to replenish the lo­cal government’s capital and reserves, pending a posi­tive advice of the CFT regarding the budget amendment which has the character of a pre-financing.

The budget amendment involves an increase of both the revenues by $435,000 and the expenditures by $500,000. As a result, the budget surplus will decrease from $440,000 over 2017 to $375,000. The 2017 budget total will increase to $14.79 million.

The Daily Herald.