$120M surplus budget set for May
Cayman Islands Premier Alden McLaughlin in the Legislative Assembly
(CNS): Government is hoping to deliver its 2015/16 budget on Friday 8 May if the Annual Financial Plan meets with the UK’s approval. However, with $540 million budgeted for core government spending and an anticipated surplus of over $120 million, the premier was confident that he would get the nod from the foreign and Commonwealth Office. The budget was sent to the UK this week and if, as is expected, the UK’s bean counters are happy with the numbers, the PPM’s mid-term budget should be delivered in just over five weeks.
This budget should pave the way to get the CIG back in compliance with all of the requirements of the Public Management and Finance Law before the end of the 2017 financial year deadline agreed by the UK.
Premier Alden McLaughlin said that the Cayman Islands was in a “good place”, and while the local job situation and unemployment among Caymanians still needed to be addressed, by all other indications things were going well in the economy and with government finances.
The premier told CNS that the budget meeting of the Legislative Assembly would be an extended meeting because after the delivery of the plan and Finance Committee, there would be a number of bills to address. He said many of the laws government had planned to bring during the next meeting, which is scheduled for immediately after Easter, were still not ready.
Facing criticism from the independent member for North Side, Ezzard Miller, who had pointed out that parliament had not sat for one of its longest periods on record in order to allow government to prepare legislation, the premier admitted that many of the bills he hoped he and his Cabinet colleagues would have brought for the next meeting would not be ready.
He said that the much-anticipated Builders Law was now ready but it was too late to meet the constitutional requirement of 21 days notice. He said it was a similar case for other important laws, such as the Standards in Public Life Law, and some others require changes as a result of the feedback received during public consultation.
McLaughlin pointed to the legislation to pave the way for a mandatory cancer registry, which he said would need to be reworked after considerable feedback from the community about the confidentiality aspect.
“We must take into account the public’s views before we bring the bill,” he said. “We are not going to ignore the feedback we have received from the people and I am not going to ignore the constitution and the 21 day notice period.”
McLaughlin said there were a number of factors impacting the timetable for legislation, from public input to the workload of the drafting department, and he said he intended to get it right. He pointed out that the independent member for North Side would be criticizing the government no matter what they did, either for rushing the bills through or for overusing the 21 days notice.
As much as he said the government aimed for a smoother timetable he said many things can derail even the best plans and it was important to go through the full process to ensure the laws were fully consulted over and properly drafted.
Ezzard Miller in the LA (Photo by Dennie Warren Jr)
Miller told CNS that the delay in preparing legislation was the fault of ministers, who were not holding people to account.
“None of the ministers appear to be working to a timetable to get the legislation we are being promised through and so no one, as usual, is being held to account for the delays,” he said. “I believe we have to sit down as members of the Legislative Assembly and set dates for the year for the meetings. Even if the premier is the one who decides this timetable, he can then hold ministerial staff to the deadline.”
Given the seven month wait between meetings, Miller asked what was happening to the legislation that would mean something to the people. During the forthcoming meeting after Easter, government will be dealing mostly with bills relating to the offshore and aviation industry, as well as the reintroduction of the caregivers certificates and private members’ motions.
But Miller asked where was the whistleblower legislation that the deputy governor had said was ready almost two years ago, or the legal practitioners bill, which the finance sector is pleading for, or the public authorities law, amendments to the Public Management and Finance Law, the rehabilitation of offenders, as well as the labour and the pensions laws? All of these, he said, were bills that could help ordinary people.
Did the premier borrow some ones jacket the sleeves are 5 inches too long
A budget is a forecast for next year’s financial performance. The operational surplus is merely a prediction. The actual operational surplus will be contained in the financial statements at the end of the fiscal year.
Ooops! Financial statements?
Since we do not have auditable financial statements from many of the previous years, how do we know that the predicted surplus will materialize?
The answer is, “we have no idea”.
I am hoping that, under the auditor’s prodding and constructive criticism, the financial statements of the government’s actual performance will eventually become credible. So far it has been a “soon come” situation.
If I am able to sell my bucket of sh*t their will be a surplus this year forget about the other money owed that is in another budget
Unfortunately, 100% of this “revenue surplus” must go towards retiring outstanding debts incurred from capital projects initiated by this party in previous terms. We are nowhere near the “good place” debt-free surpluses of yesteryear thanks to these edifice builders.
In truth it would be better spent bringing outstanding pension payments up to date but that’s a story for another day. Out of sight out of mind I suppose.
Can somebody say ,UDP! UDP propaganda machine at work.
Could you please inform us as to when was the last time that the Cayman Is have been debt free. As Anonymous 02/04/2015 at 12:11 am says:some people just do not understand what an operational surplus is ,so here goes: It is the little bit of money that most of us have left over each month after paying on our loans ,or buying food etc.It does not mean that we are debt free,just that we have met our monthly obligations.In Governments case it means that this budget is forecasting that if government collects all the revenue predicted for 2015/2016 they will have $120 million remaining after paying the operating costs for the same period.They will not be debt free ,and Alden is not saying so.However loan payments should be included in those operating costs.
Surplus, its an April fool right. Hahahahahaaha
Why is it that some persons do not understand “operational surplus”? It is the same for each of us. Just because we may have debt, say a mortgage, each of us can have an operational surplus each year. That is, after we pay our bills, living costs, etc. and our required debt payments, there could still be a bit of money left over. That is an operational surplus as I understand it. If we keep doing that each year eventually we could be debt free. No so if we CANNOT maintain an operational surplus every year.
Before the 2008 elections, PPM said they had a deficit of $25 million. After the elections, it was revealed they had a deficit of over $150 million. So how can we believe anything they tell us?
UDP,can you please wait ’til election time ? Please?
Meanwhile, in other news a squadron of F15 flying pigs performed acrobatics all over the Cayman Islands today. Residents of all kinds believed this more than the surplus story.
April fools!
I believe the Easter Bunny is the biggest April Fool’s joke of all time.Sorry but I do not believe you, or believe in you.
No more so than the baby Jesus. But thanks for the holidays.
Just as surprising as it is to hear him say it, what’s even more surprising is that there will be plenty of people who will praise them for producing these numbers even though they have been manipulated to fool the foolish..
What about all the legislation that has been completed by the Law Reform Commission and sitting on a shelf somewhere. Some of which include:
•The Family Property (Rights of Spouses) Bill, 2013
•The Law of Contempt
•The Maintenance Bill, 2013
•The Matrimonial Causes Bill, 2013
•The Protected Disclosures Bill, 2014
•The sub judice rule
•Tort Reform
•Tribunals
These have been reviewed, updated, had public consultation, amended, only t sit on a shelf.
Why waste these peoples time to do all this work if it is simply going to be ignored. As the Bills the government has as a priority are not ready, why not bring some of these Bills that are ready and just sitting there collecting dust.
the usual guff from the do-nothing ppm….. all they have done is maintian the economic policies of the last administration and have got lucky with an improving international economy…..their failure with legislation and their failure to tackle local issues is the real news….
Obviously you would have preferred change for the sake of change;well look where that has gotten us over the years.Some of us prefer the approach taken by PPM in not throwing out something just because it was their idea to begin with.
Who does their accounting?? With all the money Gov’t owes, pension back up etc…. how is there a surplus??
CNS readers please be aware that there is no $120 million surplus. Recall the report from the Office of the Auditor General which found that as much as $1 billion unaccounted for by CIG.
Ppm are improving public finances, however there’s still no surplus. Don’t be fooled by them.
It is obvious that you do not understand operating surplus,which this $120 million refers to,so I recommend reading the comments by poster Anonymous 02/04/2015 at 12:11 am.