Through technical assistance provided by IMF and SEMCAR the Government of Saint Lucia has continued to make strides in the revision of the Finance Act. A cross sectional task force comprising of key stakeholders from within the Ministry of Finance, Office of the Director of Audit and Parastatal Monitoring Unit to work with a consultant Tej Prakash to further the reform efforts. Tej Prakash is a senior economist with the IMF Fiscal Affairs Division (FAD) who has worked in many parts of the world in assisting countries with PFM reforms.
A number of issues have been down for discussion and review such as the change in timeline for Budget approval, a statement of fiscal responsibility which will support fiscal policy formulation, accountability and transparency.
Reform efforts have been ongoing from since 2006 when a draft version was disseminated to various stakeholders after consultations. Additionally, following two Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) reports an action plan was developed to chart the way forward for reforms in Public Financial Management. During the first visit in 2014, Tej Prakash and the team from the Financial Administration, Monitoring and Evaluation unit met with the Permanent Secretaries, Accountant General, Budget Director, PS Parastatal Monitoring Unit, Director of Audit and the Attorney General to discuss important issues and inefficiencies of current Finance Act. Based on weaknesses highlighted a basic framework was developed which in addition to addressing the weaknesses sough to incorporate and reflect modern best practices in PFM. This framework has then been elaborated into a draft PFM text. After several rounds of deliberation by the taskforce a final draft was presented to the heads of the Ministry of Finance. This draft has since been submitted to the Minister and the Attorney General for additional review.
This being accomplished we should soon be in a position to present to the wider group of stakeholders for review prior to enactment.