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Matters arising from Advisory Council meeting Published on Monday, September 21, 2009 Email To Friend    Print Version (TCI-GIS) -- The Advisory Council met in Grand Turk recently for the first of two meetings to consider key issues and make their recommendations for 2009/2010 Budget. The Council was given a series of presentations from the Ministry of Finance budget team with details of current and projected expenditure and revenue and the challenges facing TCI finances for the next six months of this financial year. The Advisory Council was informed that revenue for this financial year ending 31 March 2010 is expected to be approximately 155 million US dollars: 25% less than last year. It was briefed on the steps the Ministry of Finance had taken to achieve a balanced budget, and was told that further measures would be needed to reduce expenditure to close the remaining gap between expenditure and revenue. These will include additional expenditure cuts but also an increased focus on revenue generation through the collection of unpaid taxes and implementation of new revenue measures. But priority will continue to be given to safeguarding funding for security, health and safety, water and education, minimising the impact on low income households and to ensure that TCI remains a low tax economy. The Budget team also outlined a number of recommendations for the Council to consider for medium to longer-term steps to be taken to stabilise TCI’s finances. These included systematic changes to the system of administration of public finances in both central government and statutory bodies. The Council concluded by making recommendations to the Governor on membership of the Airport Authority Board.   Reads : 588 Back... Comments: No comments on this topic yet. Be the first one to submit a comment. Back... Send us your comments!   Send us your comments on this article for publication in our Readers' Forum or as a Letter to the Editor. All fields are required and in the interest of openness and transparency we will no longer accept anonymous submissions. We therefore request that all submissions include a name for publication, regardless of content. We will in special circumstances protect a writer's identity only after we have established good cause for anonymity, otherwise we will not be able to publish the submission. For your contribution to reach us, you must (a) provide a valid e-mail address and (b) click on the validation link that will be sent to the e-mail address you provide.  If the address is not valid or you don't click on the validation link, it will be a waste of your time typing your submission because we will never see it! Your Name: Your Email: (Validation required) Comments: Enter Validation Code *