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PHILIPSBURG--The Central Committee meeting of Parliament on the 2015 budget wrapped up late Friday night after a marathon session that started at 10:00am. The budget will now head to a plenary session of Parliament for final handling and voting. The meeting originally started on Thursday morning and was suspended on that night after Members of Parliament posed questions to the Council of Ministers.
The plenary session of Parliament is slated for next week.
Government needs to meet the deadline of January 31 for the establishment of the budget. The budget should have been established since December 2014, but Finance Minister Martin Hassink had requested more time to tailor the budget and ensure it was within the requirement of the Kingdom Law on Temporary Financial Supervision for Curaçao and St. Maarten. That request was granted by the Committee for Financial Supervision CFT with a deadline of January 31.
The day started out with ministers delivering answers spanning a range of topics, some directly related to the budget line items – the payment of the cost of living adjustment, payment of concession fees and completion of the government administration building on Pond Island, and others of general concern such as if any new public toilets were built in 2014 to justify the increased cost under that line item.
Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs, in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister, told Parliament no additional restrooms were constructed in Philipsburg. The additional amount in the budget is related to the cost for the outsourced management of the Philipsburg marketplace restroom.
Following the delivery of the answers, Members of Parliament asked another round of questions that were later answered by ministers.
One highlight of the meeting was National Alliance (NA) Leader MP William Marlin asking for a roll call during the second round of questions. His request sought to ascertain there were eight or more MPs in the General Assembly Room of Parliament House. Before Deputy Parliament Chairwoman Leona Marlin-Romeo could make the roll call a number of coalition MPs had re-entered the hall to secure the meeting's quorum.
