Philipsburg:--- The 2013 budget has an approximate deficit of Naf. 30 million announced Minister of Finance Roland Tuitt during the Council of Ministers' press briefing on Wednesday. Minister Tuitt told reporters that the Council of Ministers would have to decide on a way forward for fixing the draft budget that was sent to the CFT. Tuitt said that the deficit is based on old debts. The Minister said that the deficit of Naf. 30M was there for the years 2009 and 2011. However, he still has to verify if 2010 was covered. Tuitt said there was windfall due to the debt relief in the year 2010. Tuitt said the debt relief that was given by the Netherlands was used to pay off the debt of the APNA to the tune of 65 million guilders. The Finance Minister further explained that the operational costs for St. Maarten is 30 million guilders higher than is budgeted. Tuitt said that if the analysis of the CFT is factual then St. Maarten is faced with a real problem. The Finance Minister said that the Council of Ministers would either have to decide to further cut the budget or create other ways of creating more revenues. Tuitt stressed that if all the businesses on St. Maarten were paying their taxes then Government would have more than enough monies for its operations. He said that there are too many delinquent businesses while the Receivers Office is not following his advice on how to collect taxes. Tuitt explained that if the Receivers Office focuses on collecting the taxes for the past five years then the Government of St. Maarten would have collected enough monies to run its annual operations but in his opinion the civil servants don't seem to understand this point of view.
When asked by SMN News if the Council of Ministers has explored all its possibilities and if they might raise the TOT to balance and rectify the budget situation, he said there are other ways that the government can look at to take them out of the current predicament.
The Finance Minister said the government of St. Maarten has to look for a solution for the old debts if not they would all be processed in the 2013 budget. Tuitt described the situation as a total headache for government. He said the budgets for the past three years closed off with over 30 million guilders deficit.
Tuitt said the 2013 budget has various issues but the deficit is the main concern for the Government of St. Maarten.
The Minister said that he is currently waiting on the green light from the Council of Ministers to sign off on an agreement with the Minister of Finance of Curacao regarding the joint Central Bank.
IMF Meeting in Japan.
The Minister of Finance also announced that during his visit to Japan he held talks with the representatives of Barbados and St. Kitts and Nevis and both counties have agreed to share information with St. Maarten.
