New Finance Minister Colm Imbert says Budget Day is expected to be September 28.
Imbert said this in his first interview after he was sworn in as minister at a ceremony presided over by President Anthony Carmona at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, yesterday.
Imbert and the other remaining ministers of the new PNM Cabinet were sworn in yesterday. Among those in the audience were Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, National Security Minister Brigadier Edmund Dillon—who were sworn in on Wednesday—and Chief Justice Ivor Archie.
Imbert also said that the ceremonial opening of the First Session of the Eleventh Parliament was expected to take place one week earlier, on September 21.
Imbert was unable to say what
oil price the 2016 budget would be based on.
“I’ll have to check that. I have to be advised,” he told reporters.
Asked if it would be another deficit budget, Imbert said, “I will have to be advised. You see there would be a skeleton budget that would have been prepared because we are into the budget month. The financial year ends at the end of September.”
He said there was “a piece of legislation called Expenditure Without Appropriation Act and that allows you to spend money up to the end of October, so you have until the end of October to complete the budget.”
He said he intended to “talk to the public servants and see what the skeleton budget looks like and then work out when budget day will be and how long the budget will take.”
Asked if there would be a reduction in expenditure, Imbert said, “Well I can’t say anything until I see the state of play. It would be unwise of me to say anything (at this time). I have to go in and check the books and see what’s going on.”
Imbert told reporters that his first priority would be to “find out what is the state of the economy, what is the state of the debt, what is our fiscal balance (and) how much money there is in the Exchequer Account.”
He added, “I can also tell you that I am tentatively setting September 28 for Budget Day, but that all depends on what I discover when I look at the skeleton budget. We may have to adjust that date but that is the tentative date right now, which would mean that the Parliament will convene maybe a week before that for the ceremonial opening.”
He said he spoke to the Parliament and it has until October 30 to complete the entire budget debate process.
Imbert said in the circumstances, the Government was “allowed to spend ten per cent of [its] total appropriation for the preceding fiscal year in that month of October. So we are allowed to spend about $6 billion in the month of October. That is provided for in an Act of Parliament—expenditure in lieu of appropriation.”
He said he had no idea if the budget would be smaller than last year’s.
“Remember this budget would have been prepared by the outgoing administration. I intend to talk to Mr Howai and get some views from him on what factors he took into account when he was preparing the budget.”
He said he was surprised by the portfolio given to him by Prime Minister Rowley.
Imbert served in previous cabinets as Works and Transport, Science and Technology, and Health ministers.
He said the country could expect the Government to keep manifesto pledges to establish a Revenue Authority.
Asked if the amnesty on the Property Tax would be discontinued, Imbert said, “I wouldn’t want to speak about that right now. I would say now that whatever is in our manifesto with respect to finance, there is quite an extensive section on finance, we have the Revenue Authority, we also have a general accounting office to do day-to-day monitoring of expenditure and we are also going to create a statistical institute to replace the CSO, so you could get real-time data. It is all there in the manifesto.”
He added, “We have a plan mapped out already.”
On the billion dollar fuel subsidy, Imbert said he “wouldn’t want to talk about that at this point in time.”
On the Clico shareholders agreement, Imbert said he intended to be updated on the matter and would meet with Central Bank Governor Jwala Rambarran next week to discuss it.
Asked to comment on the possible changing of government members on the CL board, Imbert said he did not want to comment on that matter as to do so would be premature.