PHILIPSBURG--Finance Minister Perry Geerlings has requested Dutch State Secretary of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Raymond Knops to apply Article 25 to St. Maarten’s draft 2020 budget allowing the budget to have a deficit.
Geerlings told reporters at the Council of Ministers press briefing on Wednesday that the budget has been at the Council of Advice for the past five to six weeks.
“We are still waiting for their response,” he said adding that two weeks ago the Committee for Financial Supervision (CFT) provided its Article 11 advice, “which is necessary to work out and agree on details and content of budget.”
“Yesterday (Tuesday), I sent out the request to the Minister of Interior Affairs and Kingdom Relations Knops, requesting that Article 25 be again applied to the budget of 2020, meaning that we again will have a deficit budget and to allow us to have a deficit budget as was the case in 2019, 2018 and 2017,” Geerlings said.
