New benchmarks, deadlines set

GOVERNMENT and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have agreed to a new set of four benchmarks under the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme.

Furthermore, new deadlines have been set for other key components of the plan deemed as important to the four-year agreement.

These were announced yesterday by the BERT Monitoring Committee.

The Committee said also that an actuarial review is to be done on civil service pension system.

The deadline for the latter was moved from December 2019 to June 2020. There is also to be a revised pension law to enhance the sustainability of the public service pension scheme.

The deadline set for this has been extended from June 2020 to September 2020.

The agreement on the four benchmarks are as follows:

1. Customs Department to deploy staff to the Exemption Monitoring Unit and undertake at least eight exemption verification assignments in 2019;

2. Train and deploy at least six officers in the post-clearance audit and undertake at least eight field audits in 2019;

3. Establish a trusted trader programme that gives defined benefits to programme members by the end of 2018 and have at least eight companies participating by the end of 2019; and

4. Undertake post-release verification of entries and subject to at least 3 500 entries to the control by the end of 2019.

The Committee said that the benchmarks are split into two elements and extended from December 2019 to March 2020 for establishing the trusted trader programme, and August this year for all the other benchmarks.

It was also revealed that the Government is to table legislation for a fiscal rule to enhance fiscal transparency, developed with the support of the IMF technical assistance, and lock in the gains of fiscal consolidation.

The deadline for this will move from June this year to December this year. (JB)