Archive of posts from Saba-News.com Archive Saba News
The Daily Herald reports that the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT is concerned about the cash position of the Saba government, which has dwindled by almost US $1 million in the second quarter of 2014. In a letter dated September 2, CFT Chairman Age Bakker informed Saba Island Governor Jonathan Johnson that the quarterly report drawn up by the CFT showed that the cash position deteriorated in the second quarter compared to the first quarter of 2014, from US $1.8 million to US $0.9 million.
Bakker stated that the public entity Saba was well aware of this deterioration. “The cash position is keenly being guarded to prevent a possible deficit,” he stated. CFT wants to be kept posted on the situation and asked government to draft a liquidity prognosis for the remainder of the year.
The second executing report of 2014 showed that the public entity had a positive balance of a little over half a million dollars in the second quarter of 2014. In this period, government had about US $4.6 million in expenditures and some US $5.1 million in revenues. The positive balance will be used to, among other things, repay the interest-free loan for school buildings and strengthen the long-term cash position. The executing report showed that many of the improvement areas in financial management have been complied with, or are still in execution. The remaining improvement areas will be discussed with the accountant, after which Saba will hopefully secure an approved 2014 annual account next year, stated Bakker is his letter.
The CFT has given the green light for the second amendment of Saba’s 2014 budget. The amendment is budget neutral. Island Governor Johnson was informed on September 2 that the committee had approved the budget amendment that is the result of the second executing report of 2014. The positive advice was recently published by the CFT. The budget will be increased by close to US $290,000 on both the revenue and expenditure side, resulting in a total budget amount of a little over US $11.3 million. Saba sent the second 2014 budget amendment to the CFT on August 29. The amendment is primarily the result of the budgetneutral inclusion of special allowances for the combating of poverty-related projects of close to US $40,000, the Work Master project of some US $95,000 and related training expenses of some US $44,000. Also, covered in the budget amendment are the various personnel and training expenses covered by the Social Safety Net (US $64,300) and the electrical upgrade of the Princess Juliana Sports Field to the tune of US $23,600, paid for by the Netherlands.
