Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Hon. Philip Davis addressed parliament on the new Public Management Bill which was tabled in the House of Assembly.
He said, “the compendium legislation which comprise the Public Procurement Act, the Public Finance Management Act, the Public Debt Management Act and the Fiscal Responsibility Act had provision which were not compatible with the way our country actually works. In fact there are provisions which severely hampered the legitimate operations of the government. My administration’s amendments to the public finance legislation support a more efficient collection and expenditure of funds by the government.”
Davis went further saying, “the Public Finance Management Act dictates that legal and institutional framework for supervising all phases of the budget cycle inclusive of budget preparation, budget execution, expenditure management, internal controls as well as monitoring and reporting arrangements.”
Addressing defects of the current legislation, the Prime Minister said, “under the prior legislation, the Ministry of Finance was to prepare the fiscal strategy report to be tabled in November. As a result forecasts and data within the report were based on data that occurred in July, August, September and possibly October. Therefore having tabled a document in November 2021 that was meant to guide fiscal planning in May 2022 was immensely impractical. Within that seven month timeframe economic conditions in domestic and international source markets were subject to drastic shifts that needed to be reflected in the budget planning exercise. It is important to note that in this new legislation the fiscal strategy report will align with the fiscal year so that it accompanies that annual budget.”
The bill seeks to repeal the Fiscal Responsibility Act and the Public Financial Management Act.
