Progressive Liberal Party Leader Phillip Davis  yesterday  made a strong case why his party has no confidence in the government’s ability to manage the country’s public finances.

Wrapping up the Opposition’s contribution to the 2019/2020 budget in the House of Assembly,  Mr. Davis charged  that the government missed critical fiscal targets for the past two budgetary periods because they failed to present realistic budget targets.

“What I’m saying   is that they burrowed four times to pay salaries and the next question I asked is,  if in the same time  did they not even ask the bank to extend the overdraft facility three times to make payroll.” 

“Now,  what I’m saying    is that will make seven times that they were unable to meet salaries in the period of nine months,” he said.   

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Peter Turnquest strongly disagreed, arguing that the government  is well within its borrowing perimeters for the year.

“The point is again, to meet its cash flow requirements, from time to time the government has to engage in short term borrowings in order to provide for salaries, for rent and for everything else that it needs,  because again it is not an even flow of revenue across the year, “ said the Minister of Finance.

“One of the budget goals that we have is to even out or provide for the collection of business licenses taxes for example four times during the year that will help us to even out this cash flow problem that we have.

“There’s nothing unusual and I want the public to be aware that although there are some implications  that there is something wrong here, that this is normal,” Minister Turnquest said.       

Not letting up, Mr. Davis stressed that the government’s borrowing to meet salaries is worrying.

He  questioned  how the government collected some $250 million dollars more this fiscal year,  but still had to borrow to meet salaries.

The opposition maintains that the Minnis Administration will again miss its revenue and deficit targets and miss them badly.