Budget Day today!

TODAY is Budget day and Barbadians eagerly await this evening’s presentation by Prime Minister, the Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, in Parliament.

This will be Prime Minister Mottley’s second Budget in less than a year and there is a great deal of anxiety as to what she will be bringing to maintain the current Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme, which started last year.

Having been subjected over the last ten months to a programme of austerity and a feeling that more will be coming, Barbadians still wonder what form any additional taxation will take or if there is likely to be some ease from some of the current revenue-raising measures.

Speculation is that the Budget will most likely be a continuation of the first the Prime Minister did last June, in view of the work the Government said it has to do in accordance with both the BERT programme and the dictates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The first Budget contained a suite of new taxes and expenditure cuts to stabilise Government’s fiscal position under what is known as the BERT programme. Last December the Prime Minister said that progress was made in improving some of the economic fundamentals – halting the slide in the foreign reserves and rebuilding them; improving the fiscal position by way of higher taxes and expenditure cuts; lowering the debt to GDP ratio; rebasing the economy; and helping to restore private sector confidence. The domestic debt exchange, another key feature of the BERT, was also completed.

Most of these improvements were costly, as evidenced by the more than 1 000 persons who lost their jobs, the increased tax burden, which is now higher than ever before in the history of Barbados and which has eroded purchasing power, and the losses investors – both private and individuals – have incurred from the debt rescheduling.

One of the principal policy measures is the primary surplus of six per cent in the next fiscal year, which starts in April. This has evoked wide discussion.

The presentation is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m.

Barbados Advocate

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Advocate Publishers (2000) Inc
Fontabelle, St. Michael, Barbados

Phone: (246) 467-2000
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