2019/20 Budget Communication Final Budget Communication | Page 4

2019/20 Budget Communication
It is my honour to present the 2019/20 Budget Communication.
I.
Introduction
Mr. Speaker,
Those words are not spoken lightly nor flippantly, for it is indeed a deep honour for
our Government to have been entrusted by the Bahamian people with the responsibility to manage
the affairs of state of our beloved Bahamaland.
It is a responsibility that we sincerely heed.
Our personal commitment to the
betterment of the lives of our citizens is unwavering. And that commitment has motivated the
policy choices we carefully weighed for the new budget. It underpins the decisions we make to
advance the proactive socio-economic transformation agenda that we presented to the electorate
only two years ago.
From day one, we committed ourselves to catapult our economy out of the lethargic
state in which we found it. Now that we are two years in, we can report to the Bahamian people
that we have improved our fiscal outlook; we have exercised fiscal restraint that has led to
economic growth; and we have restored confidence in the ability of the Government to pursue
responsible fiscal management. We have fundamentally introduced high standards of transparency
and accountability in the management of taxpayers’ money, demonstrating how a Government
performs in the best interest of the nation and not for political expediency. This is the first budget
that will be fully enacted under the legal framework of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2018.
Mr. Speaker,
In a nutshell, we have:
through the Fiscal Responsibility Act, provided a legally binding framework for
responsible fiscal management with specific annual targets for the deficit, as well
as effective public and parliamentary scrutiny of our fiscal performance;
introduced the practice of proper budgeting for known commitments, to avoid
the buildup of unpaid arrears;