Finance Minister, Marco Archer, announced in the Legislative Assembly last week the unaudited results for the 2012/13 fiscal year, saw government end the year with a surplus of $63.3 million.

This was the largest surplus for many years.

However, it wasn’t all good news.

The budget, presented last year by former premier, McKeeva Bush, had projected a surplus of $82M but it fell well short by $18.7M. Operating expenses from the Public Services were down by $10M but government collected $30M less than was expected.

NOTE: All figures are approximate.

Although the reason for the short fall in the budget figures was because relevant legislation was passed too late to generate new fees or not passed at all, some was due to predicted sources of revenue missing their targets.

The worst offender was Cayman Enterprise City. Despite all the hoopla that the special economic zone was going to generate millions into Cayman’s coffers it only collected a little under $200,000.

The United Kingdom has confirmed it has accepted the government’s new four year fiscal plan.

Because of the need for an interim budget, the government has not yet presented its full 2013/14 Budget that is expected during the week starting 23 September.

Archer, supported by Premier Alden McLaughlin, said this would give Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) time to properly scrutinize the spending plans and question civil servants, as it would be more than a month ahead of the expiration of the emergency budget.

Previously, during the United Democratic Party administration, MLAs have had to sit in the early hours of the morning in last minute marathon sessions, because of the lateness in most of the budget presentations.