Still no Budget Address date set!
It was our newsroom that first and accurately alerted the public late last year that there will not be a budget address at the end of last year (2015) for the 2016 Appropriation Act to be delivered by the Minister of Finance and Premier Dr The Honourable D. Orlando Smith.
Both the Minister of Finance Premier Smith and his Financial Secretary Neil M. Smith are tight lipped on a Budget Address date. However, a senior NDP source told our newsroom that “Departments and Ministries are preparing their information.”
NDP Financial Stewardship
There continues to be concern about how the ruling NDP has managed the Territory’s finances. The former Auditor General Ms Sonia M. Webster has bitterly complained that since the current Administration took office from 2011 to current, there have not been any audited financial statements.
This has led to national wide speculations about the Virgin Islands’ finances, trust, transparency and accountability.
Recently, following the 2015 election, many in the media, the Virgin Islands Party (VIP) Opposition, social and civil society have all accused the NDP government of leaving the country broke, in order to win the general election.
Premier Smith as the Minister of Finance has been silent about these allegations. Not to forget there are reports of corruption on a multi-million dollars Ports Development Project confirmed by two reports and a former project manager Hugh E. Darley.
Four Accountant Generals out!
Since the NDP took office in 2011 there have been several changes of Accountant Generals. In fact, there have been four Accountant Generals in four years.
Mrs Kharid Fraser, wife of Third District Representative Honourable Julian Fraser RA, was removed from her post of Accountant General as soon as the NDP took office. Ms Anna Rabsatt was then named Acting Accountant General.
However, Ms. Rabsatt was sent home under the Government programme of ‘take your vacation days or lose it’ and never returned to the post.
An Anguillan consultant assigned to the Treasury Department Kalleesha C. Mendie then became the new Acting Accountant General of the Virgin Islands.
In August 2013, however, Dr. Sandra M. Beeson was confirmed in the post of Accountant General of the territory before tendering her resignation on December 2, 2014.
Prior to the recent 2015 election campaign, VIP senior member Honourable Andrew A. Fahie (R1) blasted the administration for the many Accountant Generals who had fled or were removed from office for political reasons.
“In three years, this Administration has had four Accountant Generals and a fifth is yet to be named. In any business where the Head Accountant flies the coop so often then something is drastically wrong with the financial management of the company,” Hon Fahie had said on January 24, 2015, during his delivery of his First District Annual Report at the Capoons Bay Recreational Grounds.
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26 Responses to “Still no Budget Address date set!”
For the sake of innocent hungry children and some old ppl who need a decent meal