The Tribune

By DANA SMITH

Tribune Staff Reporter

dsmith@tribunemedia.net

THE government is exploring “major initiatives” targeted at limiting the country’s expenditure and increasing revenue ahead of the delivery of the mid-year budget.

Yesterday, both State Minister for Finance Michael Halkitis and Prime Minister Perry Christie briefly spoke on the yet-to-be-named initiatives outside Cabinet where the latter also said “final clearance” has been given to begin public consultations on tax reform.

The former admitted the country’s revenue is not yet where they want it to be and confirmed the government is currently concluding numbers for the next budget.

“We’re in the process now of getting all the numbers finalized,” Mr Halkitis said. “The first half ended December 21. Around next week we should start getting preliminary numbers to see where we are and we’ve already started the process of putting the budget together.”

He said revenue is not “as good as we would like it”, but noted it has “picked up a bit” recently.

“But we have some initiatives in the works to improve it,” he continued. “Some things we are going to be rolling out during the mid-term budget that should have an effect for the second half of the year.”

When asked if the government needs to borrow any more money, Mr Halkitis said they “may” but only if they have to pay off prior commitments that have not yet been honoured.

“If we have to do anything additional, it will be because we have to pay for prior commitments,” he said. “Things that had been purchased that there was no money for and anything unforeseen like contingencies.”

He said a “complete picture” of where the country is in terms of its budget and the government’s plan on how to reduce the spending and increase revenue will be revealed when the mid-term budget is released.

Mr Christie told the press the Ministry of Finance is “really taking major initiatives” to combat the country’s financial challenges.

“We have to collect more revenue and we have to find a way to limit and control the expenditure,” he said. “We’re hoping that reforms we are contemplating will in fact, before we go to the budget, that we will have those reforms in place.”

When asked about tax reform, Mr Christie said the government has given the “final clearance” to the Ministry of Finance to begin “public consultations.”

He said: “The presentation that the Ministry of Finance will make to the public, we have put that in place and we expect – really in very short time from now – those public consultations to commence.”