WILLEMSTAD.- The College of Financial Supervision (CFT) forecasts that the income from the 2018 tax will be 30 million guilders less than what the government predicted in this year’s budget. In a letter addressed to Finance Minister Kenneth Gijsbertha, CFT president Raymond Gradus asked the government to analyze the problem and immediately install measures to compensate for the decrease in the respective income. According to Gradus, the Government of Curaçao in the 2018 budget used a 0.3% increase in our economy for this year. According to Gradus, based on the figures from the Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten, it would be more realistic to use a forecast of a 1.6% decrease for our economy. This is visible in the tax income for 2018 so far, according to Gradus. This will have consequences among others for social premiums. According to Gradus it is important that Minister Gijsbertha make an analysis of the situation. With this the bad situation will become more visible. And starting from this, the Minister Gijsbertha can take measures to compensate the income of funds.
Another point of concern of CFT, is that there are different government companies that have not yet paid the government their dividends so far. And currently there are 112 million guilders open derived from 9 government companies for the years 2016 and 2017. On the other hand, the Government owes a large debt to FKP. For the period up to 2009 this amount was 100 million guilders. For the year 2010 and 2011 until now, there is no agreement. But according to CFT, the Government must make more efforts to reach an agreement with FKP regarding the amount owed. CFT asked the Government to come up with a solutions for this uncertainty before the end of the year and to enter into an agreement with FKP related to the total debt they have with this Institution.
