Recently Minister Maduro of Finance together with the Prime Minister met with the College of Financial Supervision CAFT to give an overview of the advances made in the financial management of Aruba. It is a meeting that takes place regularly so that the College of CAFT can be informed at a government level about the work that is being done and decisions being made in order to improve the financial management of our country.
Topics related to CAFT
Topics discussed included, among others, the timely delivery of the 2024 Budget to Parliament, execution of the 2023 Budget and together with the quarterly financial reporting in the URK, the Delays in the country’s Annual Accounts, compliance with taxes, the structure for dealing with public investment, and gave an overview of the negotiations with the Netherlands for the location of the refinancing the debt to overcome the pandemic.
Budget on time and with surplus
CAFT, like the Advisory Board, is commended for the fact that the government has been able to fulfill two consecutive years to deliver the Budget of Aruba on time according to our Constitution. They take note that the budgets comply with the regulations, so it is important that a 1% surplus is needed to reduce the pressure of interest expense.
Paying attention to expenses
CAFT calls for attention to the management of other government expenditures, for which the Minister Maduro informed that the World Bank is preparing to make an Expenditure Review in which financial exercise can be viewed as cutting costs without affecting the operation the basics of governance. Delays in financial reporting are addressed Minister Maduro also elaborated on the challenges that he managed to overcome in order to produce it.
Financial reports required by CAFT can be made by financial controllers. After 10 years of Continuous work, last month the Finance Department manages to get their certificate from the company CapGemini assures that the work to update the automated system of financial administration of the country of Aruba has been completed. This will facilitate the production of financial reporting and once the human capacity part is clear, we can be sure that delays in the URK and the Annual Accounts will become history. For the latter, CAFT has shared a diagram showing how the delay in 2 Annual Accounts will be resolved so that in September 2024 the Annual Accounts of the year can be delivered 2023 paired with the 2025 Budget, thus closing the 2023 budget cycle.
DIMP with great progress In the field of tax compliance, Minister Maduro explained, among other things, the progress made in the Department of Taxation (DIMP) where after 40 years it is possible to the backlog in tax compliance. He attended a meeting of the loonbelasting committee. “We are currently paying restitution for 2022. Now with the help of TWO set up a team that will deal with the objection cards so that the delay in issuance is also resolved in the shortest possible time.
Structure to deal with public investment
The topic of public investment was discussed with CAFT in a separate meeting with the Minister of Economy, the executives of the Finance Department and the Economic Department are working For three years now, a Commission has been evaluating all requests for public investment. Investments which meets the specified criteria, is given priority to be included in the Budget. By the way Here it is necessary for investments to take place in a structured way. CAFT is similar to CARTAC, which is the Caribbean sector of the IMF, praises the fact that the Government of Aruba is implementing the This organized system of dealing with investment, which is new throughout the Caribbean.
Negotiations for debt refinancing with the Netherlands Last week, the Minister President gave CAFT an overview of the negotiations with the Netherlands on the refinancing of the debt that Aruba has accumulated in order to overcome the pandemic. He indicated that the negotiations are going well and hopes to have clarity on the matter soon. The president indicated that everything will continue as usual in accordance with the rules and regulations of the financial supervision.
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