The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

INSISTING that the country is moving in the right direction, Economic Affairs Minister Michael Halkitis yesterday dismissed criticism from the opposition that the government was too optimistic in its budget projections.

Mr Halkitis told reporters during a press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister that the government was fully confident with its forecasts and agreed that while officials were optimistic, the government’s track record spoke for itself.

“Yes, they are optimistic, but I would just like to say every projection that we’ve made, since we’ve come to office, we’ve beaten, not only met them, we’ve beaten those projections and so, yes, it’s optimistic but all that means is we have to work hard to achieve them,” he said.

“And, like I said, we’ve met and beaten every single projection that we have made. So, we feel good, that the economy is moving well, as the Prime Minister said, being driven by the rebound in tourism, very, very robust and persistent rebound and tourism and, you know, that has, of course, led economic recovery and we see that continuing notwithstanding some projections from external agencies about slowing growth.”

He added, “We’ll do all we can to make sure our economy continues to grow.”

During his mid-year budget communication in Parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Phillip Davis revealed that revenue collections were up, which he partially attributed to growing tourism numbers, among other things.

And, according to Mr Davis, the government is now only predicting that revenue will exceed budget estimates by some $53m.

However, FNM leader Michael Pintard yesterday voiced concern over the widening deficit, and recurrent spending outpacing the growth in revenues, believing the Davis administration’s predictions to be “overly optimistic.”

But Mr Halkitis does not share these same views and said the government felt optimistic about its projections based on historical trends.

He said the bulk of the country’s revenue usually comes during the second half of the fiscal year.

“Historically, we have collected most of our revenue in the first half of the calendar year, the second half of the fiscal year, so that period between January and June, that is when the bulk of the revenues are collected,” the minister continued.

“This year, we’ve seen a very, very good sign where we’ve had 44 percent of the revenue collected in the first half as opposed to 43 percent last year and 35 percent the year before. So, what we’ve seen happening is that we’re collecting more revenue in the first half of the year.

“The second point I wish to make is that in this year we’ve had some very, very heavy expenditure spending that had to be done in October as well as December mainly related to our debt obligations so the point I’m making is this period that we’re now in, is the time when we will see the bulk of the revenue come in.

“We’ve also seen those heavy commitments taken care of so the spending will not be as much, so we should see an even better budget performance during the second half of the year.”

Yesterday, Mr Halkitis also responded to the opposition’s criticism concerning its business licence renewal process.

Mr Pintard has accused the government of “unleashing burdens” on the business sector, such as the red tape required to get a business licence.

However, Mr Halkitis said the Department of Inland Revenue was just doing due diligence to ensure that the information being presented to them is correct and encouraged business owners to be precise in their record keeping.

“So, we should not look at it as the department imposing measures on people, but just as sort of a reinforcement of what you know, good business practices are, whether it’s the small business, medium business, the start-up business or the large business and so that is what we’re encouraging.”

To date, the department has approved under 19,000 business licence applications so far for the year, according to Minister Halkitis yesterday.

“I can tell you now that we have 13,468 (that have) been issued,” he also said.

“That’s completely closed, approved and issued. We have another 5,597 that have been approved, but just awaiting payment. So, if we add those two together, we get just under 19,000.”

“We have 9,859 where some additional information has been requested, and they’re just waiting on that information and we have 8,166 to review that’s at yesterday so I’m sure that number is lower, and we’ve had 651 cases rejected.”