On Friday 30 June, in accordance with the Constitution, Patrick Salomon, the Minister of the Economy and Finance tabled in the office of the Chamber of Deputies his draft budget law 2017-2018. Cholzer Chancy, President of the Lower House, took note of the deposit and promised to follow up with the Finance Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and do his best to bring the parliamentarians to hold a meeting next week to allow Minister Salomon to present the explanatory memorandum to this draft budget. Let us recall that constitutionally, Parliament has until the second Monday of September to sanction this draft budget.

Public works, agriculture and education are the three main beneficiaries of this budget, followed by Public Health, Defense and its plan to rebuild the Haitian Armed Forces and the environment.

This budget estimate of 144 billion Gourdes is up by 18% compared to the budget of the current year of 121.9 billion. Note that the government’s operating budget amounts to 86 billion (60%) of the budget, well above the 58 billion (40%) devoted to investments.

Parliamentarians are called upon to work on this document in order to deepen it further. Minister Salomon said he was open and ready to answer all questions from deputies on all the headings of the 2017-2018 Budget.

To achieve this budget increase, Minister Salomon does not hide that he is going to get some of these extra revenues from taxpayers who do not meet their tax obligations. To compel them, among other things, he intends to generalize the presentation of a tax receipt in order to obtain from now any document from the State, which will oblige citizens and companies to make their final declaration of tax and to pay taxes. Other sources of revenue evoked, the Vehicle Inspection Service and generalized license plates to motorcycles across the country pending more details in the presentation of the Minister.

SL/ HaitiLibre