The Ministry of Finance is working to strengthen the budgeting process for Anguilla’s statutory bodies, Premier Cora Richardson Hodge has said.
The move follows a lack of timeliness in the preparation and ministerial approval of the annual expenditure estimates before they are tabled in the Anguilla House of Assembly.
“The Ministry of Finance recognises that in recent years we have not been as timely as we should have been in completing this annual cycle for all of our statutory bodies – that needs to improve,” the premier said.
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“We are therefore working with the statutory bodies and their respective portfolio ministries to bring greater discipline to the process.”
The ministry is supporting earlier preparation of estimates, more timely consideration and approval, and stronger alignment between annual budgets, financial performance and medium-term planning.
“I want to stress, that this is not only about getting budgets before this house earlier, but we also want better budgets,” the premier said during a sitting of the Anguilla House of Assembly on 12 August.
Richardson Hodge, who also serves as finance minister, explained that the Financial Administration and Audit Act establishes requirements for the budgets.
It says the bodies should provide a clear account of what they intend to deliver, the resources required to do so, how those activities will be financed, and the implications for the sustainability of the institution.
The premier said the finance ministry wants government agencies to look beyond a single financial year.
Instead they should consider their financial position, their operating model, their future obligations and the resources they will need to sustainably deliver the mandate given to them.
“There will be challenges,” she said, “some of our statutory bodies have quite different financial circumstances and operating models, and some will require more support than others, but the principle must be consistent.
“Public resources must be planned for properly, managed responsibly and accounted for transparently. Today is part of getting that process back onto the footing that it should be.”
The government is also working to clear a backlog in the external audit of its accounts, with reports for 2019 and 2020 only being laid before parliament this week.
Richardson Hodge said the backlog predates the current administration and was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, but that a recovery plan is now in place to bring the audit cycle up to date.
