PHILIPSBURG--Government and all her departments will have “to bite the bullet” as significantly cut expenditures, says newly-appointed Finance Minister Richard Gibson. He wants to see a “serious reduction in expenditure” across the board to bring the 2016 budget more realistically in line with Government’s “historically” revenue generation capacity of some NAf. 445 million annually.
The Finance Ministry will do its “utmost” to get the 2016 Budget balanced, said Gibson. “There are quite some challenges that we face. There are many things we have to do to reach that point. It is not an easy task.”
All ministries will have to make cuts, Gibson said. The Ministries’ planning will also have to take a drastic change from submitting a wish list to putting together a plan of how they will work with what they have to maintain what is there now, said the Minister.
Gibson said, “We have been eating our cake and then behaving as if we still have cake.” The most challenging item related to the 2016 Budget is the some NAf. 116-million debt the Government has to General Pension Fund APS and Social and Health Insurance SZV. A solution to the debt must be found for next year and onwards in the multi-annual budget.
Spending time on amendments to the 2015 Budget “makes no sense” at this time of the year, said the new minister. “We will not spend time and energy on 2015.”
