Wednesday’s Central Committee of Parliament meeting about the 2015 financial statements (see related story) confirmed that there is a serious backlog in submitting these to be made law as required by September 1 of the following year. Rather than blaming his predecessors, the focus of Finance Minister Ardwell Irion was thankfully on addressing this shortcoming.
He stated his firm intention to eliminate the arrears this calendar year and has already taken steps to do so. That commitment also indicates a return to the same position in the next NA-led cabinet expected to take office soon.
The minister evidently has no problem with the involvement of others including the World Bank and regional technical assistance centre of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to accomplish this quite ambitious but worthwhile goal. At the same time, concerns expressed by the General Audit Chamber and government accountant SOAB on the 2015 draft are being taken into account “where feasible.”
An important step is getting approval from the Netherlands for a capital loan to fund the related financial management improvement project. There is no reason to doubt the minister’s capability in this regard, especially after he and Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs recently got the Dutch government to drop pension reform as an immediate requirement for 50 million Netherlands Antillean guilders in pending liquidity support.
However, some conditions for such are still to be met, like reducing the cost of politics and more specifically of parliamentarians and ministers. An alternative to the contested pay cut initially called for in The Hague was to be sought, but little else has since been heard.
This issue has been an ongoing one that needs to be resolved to ensure the necessary public funding while the country’s recovery from Hurricane Irma in terms of the tourism economy and related tax revenues continues. High time to settle it once and for all.
