Philipsburg:--- The board of the CFT (College financieel toezicht) seems to be peeved by the statements made by Finance Minister Roland Tuitt who told reporters two weeks ago at the Council of Ministers' weekly press briefing that the CFT was wrong with their statements when they said that so far country St. Maarten did not submit its financial statements for the year "October 2010 to December 2011". Tuitt showed reporters a report book which stated that the statements were inside of that book. In a one on one meeting with members of the press, the secretary of the CFT Erik van Engelen said that they were not speaking about the time when St. Maarten was part of the Netherlands Antilles. "The statements for the Netherlands Antilles were submitted but they were referring to the financial statements from the time St. Maarten became a country. Van Engelen said that the CFT was told that the financial statements are by the SOAB and when it is finished it has to go to the General Audit Chamber and Parliament before it reaches them. They said the deadline for those statements already passed and they spoke to the Minister of Finance of St. Maarten and clarified what statements they were referring to. It appeared as though the Minister of Finance Roland Tuitt was supposed to clarify or apologize for his statements regarding the announcement he made at the Council of Ministers' press briefing but he never did so.
One of the issues the CFT has with the 2013 budget which is currently being discussed in Parliament is the Justice Park that Minister of Justice Roland Duncan wants to construct. They said they are of the opinion that St. Maarten should put the project on hold because they believe that the Minister of Justice will be building this project via loan which will have an 8% interest rate on it. According to the CFT, St. Maarten should seek to obtain this loan from the Netherlands where they will pay a mere 2.5% interest rate and they can also borrow more monies to upgrade all the Ministries that are lacking monies.
As for the 2013 budget, the CFT said that this budget is already late because only now it is being discussed in the Central Committee and next week it will be discussed in Parliament. The 2013 budget might reach the CFT by June this year, by then St. Maarten still has to buckle up to prepare the 2014 budget.
The government of St. Maarten promised the CFT and it is also included in the budget of 2013 that St. Maarten will increase its tax compliance in order to fullfill the target of its budget. They also intend to levy taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and other items and that should have been implemented by April 1, 2013.