Government
Failure to complete more than half of capital projects; ‘That’s on us’ – Saunders
By Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
#TurksandCaicos, May 19, 2023 – The Government not only failed to deliver on promised capital projects despite historic budgeted expenditure in the last financial year (2022/23), but compared to previous years with much lower budgets they are barely above average. The revelation came from E Jay Saunders, Deputy Premier and Finance Minister in the first day of budget debates, Tuesday May 16th.
“The [last] four administrations, The interim Administration, Hon Dr. Rufus Ewing’s Administration, Hon. Sharlene Cartwright Robinson’s Administration, and our current administration spent an average of $16.8 million per year on capital projects.”
Saunders admitted that the $18.2 million that the Government managed to spend last fiscal year, while more than $16 million, was not up to target.
“It made us averse to budget (lower than budget) by a staggering 67 percent. That is on us. We budgeted $55.8 million for capital projects; we could only deliver 18.2,” he said.
Capital Projects can be described as those projects that improve overall quality of life in a tangible way, usually via upgrades to infrastructure, examples include recreational parks, upgrades to schools and more.
Projects that the Government managed to complete included: IT command and control systems for all Islands; upgrades to water storage and distribution facilities; lights installed in Grand Turk; new blocks for several schools;
Even so, only 18 million of the budgeted $55.8 million that should have been spent on improving the lives and welfare of residents across the Turks and Caicos Islands was expended. Saunders acknowledged that this, while technically better than average, is insufficient and committed to fixing the gap between budgeting and delivering.
“It is time to reevaluate the capital projects process from concept to delivery to enhance efficiency while maintaining the necessary checks and balances,” he said.
It’s a disheartening announcement for islanders once again as they remain without key infrastructure for play, work, and safety. Aside from the slowed infrastructural development of the country and residents being deprived of their promised parks, school upgrades, road upgrades, and more; another major concern when capital projects remain undelivered, is what happens to the money that should have been used for them.
Saunders explained that to improve efficiency in 2022, the Government amended certain rules governing capital projects allowing ‘the entire appropriations development fund to be committed for a period of 2 financial years’. It gave projects the needed funding whether they were started or not, restricting that money for use on those projects only. With the financial year over and a chunk of those projects not yet started it meant:
“Consequently we would have started this financial year with $37.6 million of our cash on hand restricted due to capital projects that had not yet started.”
With a promise already made to the UK not to let their unrestricted funds fall below what was needed to run the country for 90 days (which would certainly have happened with $37 million tied up), TCIG had to allow the funding to expire with the financial year.
The bungled job of clearing Public Works before planning projects, means Public Infrastructure plans will have to be resubmitted to the House requiring a duplication of work further slowing the pace of projects in the country.
The Government has budgeted $64.4 million for Capital projects this (2023/24) financial year.