Bush delivers a budget, unapproved because he had to
Although the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Minister Henry Bellingham has not approved the Cayman islands 2012/13 Budget, Premier, Hon. McKeeva Bush, presented it anyway because he said he had to and he was confident it would be approved.
The FCO allowed the Deputy Governor, Hon. Franz Manderson, to present the throne speech, which he began at around 5pm after the Legislative Assembly convened at 4:15pm instead of the 2:30pm that had been scheduled. This was after it had been postponed from Friday (17) because the FCO would not approve another one submitted by government.
Mr. Bush said he had done everything that he had been asked to provide by the FCO’s advisor that had been sent to help but the FCO kept “moving the goal posts.”
The 2012/13 budget is already two months late because government failed to present a proper spending programme after the FCO refused to give approval to a budget that included a borrowing requirement of $60M.
However, Bush said, he has now fixed everything but the FCO minister has not had the opportunity to read the proposals thoroughly and therefore could not give his final approval. Because the 31st August timeline for the stopgap funds approved by the LA is drawing near, Mr. Bush said he had no choice but to deliver an unapproved budget.
Now that the premier has given his budget address, that lasted over 3½ hours, the leader of the opposition has only one day to consider it before making his reply. The LA is scheduled to reconvene at 10am on Wednesday. That will be followed by a debate in which all members of the House have the opportunity to present their own take on the spending plans. Mr. Bush said they didn’t have to and smilingly said it was the best budget ever and they should just approve it.
Next, the legislators will have to scrutinize it with the relevant government department heads. This is normally done at a meeting of Finance Committee and followed by a vote taken on the appropriations for this financial year.
A full report on all the Budget details will be posted tomorrow.
