Dear Honorable Members of Parliament,
Once again we thank you for allowing the public the opportunity to download the draft budget, which in turn has given the people the opportunity to criticize certain elements in the budget before it is approved. This is a step in a good direction in terms of transparency, we hope similar consideration is given to the people's comments on the draft.
A couple major concerns that are evident in the way Parliament would like to move forward is the lack of new effective constructive policies to justify the amounts of monies expected to be collected and the manner in which this budget has come to be.
We are 4 months into 2013 and the budget is still not approved! The budget of any year had to be approved since September of the previous year, that was 6 months ago. How can the ministries and other organizations that all depend on this budget for their progressive development possibly function properly while waiting 6 or 7 months to know what they can and cannot spend?
It seems to have become the norm in St. Maarten, to not follow due process when creating these budgets. In following the due process to create a new budget the audited accounts of the previous budget must be brought into consideration to make sound decisions. It has been years since the people have heard of an audit on government spending! The Honorable Minister of Finance knows this, he would not have allowed his stellar accounting firm to act in this way with their clients, so why with us? Why with our young nation?
Then it seems like much of the numbers have just been pulled out of the air. Any blind man can see that the amount of money expected to be collected from the road tax, is just not going to be attained. Again, where is the policy to justify that that amount of money will be collected? There is no way to easily identify a vehicle for which road tax has been paid for or not. The police are not excited about controlling so many vehicles this way, and a huge amount of people will just not comply. Come on, not even a sticker, a mini plate, not even a bright colored air freshener to hang from the rear view mirror to help the police enforce this tax! Or was parliament just going to trust the 'honesty' of the people to pay their road tax? Well honesty should start in Parliament.
It was mentioned that the amount of money for staffing in the tax department will be cut but at the same time, Parliament expects the Tax department to collect more money through higher compliance. WOW! So it is expected that less staff in the tax department will be able to do more work than they did last year. What is the secret to that? Truth is this is the type of policy that breeds later budget amendments, where again man power will then have to be flown in from Curacao to help out and we all know they are paid way higher than our civil servants.
And the Tourism promotional budget will also be cut. How do we expect to promote our tourism product better with these cuts? I guess that means we will be relying on Tempo Turns 8 'The Budget still late' for all our tourism promotional efforts this year. How will we even know if these efforts have worked when you also cut the budget of the department of Statistics? How can the ministry of health get a budget increase while the subsidy of SMMC is cut? Where do we go when we are sick, to the ministry or the hospital? Finally, how is it that with all the cuts, the budget still almost 10% higher.
In closing, why can't we get this budget right? This budget is the reason our economy is going south and our civil service hands are tied. How can we expect improvements in education, justice and the way we live in St. Maarten when you do not take the development of this budget seriously? You members of Parliament are the ones who get up and make promises to the people, so how could you possibly deliver when your budget is 6 months late with make believe numbers, no audited previous reports and no policies to see plans for improvement through? Or is there another budget coming after the CFT approves this one just because it balances... #sxmmovement
Soualiga Social Movement
