Ministerial Statement as delivered by the Premier Honourable Charles Washington Misick on the Supplementary Appropriation (2020/2021) (No.3) Bill 2021

Mr Speaker, under the Public Financial Management Ordinance I hereby table the 3rd Supplementary Appropriation Estimates for the financial year 2020-21.

The Supplementary Estimates seek to cancel capital projects totalling $7.7m because my Government would like to thoroughly review these projects for environmental impact and value for money.

We will reallocate, $6.7m of the savings to the recurrent expenditure to facilitate the payment of the citizens’ economic stimulus.   Also, we are proposing to Vire $3.0m in unused funding from the Contingency Fund to the Citizens’ economic stimulus.  The poverty alleviating cash grants for citizens and MSMEs that have fallen on ‘hard time’ will increase by 37.5 per cent to $27.9m.  A major focus of my Government is to take care of our people during these difficult times by keeping the population healthy and safe while strategically rebuilding a sustainable economy.

The retirement benefits allocation will increase by $1.8m, primarily to settle outstanding payments of gratuity and pension to former legislators. Therefore, the recurrent expenditure will increase to $273.6m and the capital expenditure reduced to $27.5m. The revised expenditure is $307.4m, an overall reduction in expenditure of $1.0m.

Capital Expenditure

The Supplementary Estimates for the Capital Expenditure propose to allocate additional funding to complete ongoing projects that experienced scope creeps due to further deterioration of the structures and additional costs resulting from TCIG having to enact the Force Majeure Clause in the civil works contracts because of the lockdown which resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.   Also, several tendered projects are at the evaluation stage and will require additional funding to advance, we are proposing the additional resources to advance these projects.