Council of Minister authorizes expenses to prepare the visit of His Holiness Pope Francis to Timor-Leste
At its meeting on February 28th, 2024, the Council of Ministers decided to authorise the expenditure of up to US$ 12 million from the Contingency fund for the High-Level Institutional Coordinating Committee for the visit of His Holiness Pope Francis to organise the preparatory activities for that visit.
This Committee, led by the Minister of the Presidency of the Council Ministers, Agio Pereira, and with Minister of State Administration, Tomás do Rosário Cabral, as High-Level Institutional Vice Coordinator General, is responsible for organising the preparatory activities for the papal visit. 
The duties of the High-Level Institutional Coordinator-General and Vice Coordinator-General include representing the Timorense Government before the representatives of the Holy See in charge of preparing the visit, accompanying the Vatican delegation, and proposing the appointment of an Executive Committee for the preparation of the visit. They are also responsible for coordinating with the relevant Government departments and other entities to guarantee all the necessary actions for the visit to take place.
On February 12th, the Holy See’s representative in Timor-Leste, Monsignor Marco Sprizzi, revealed that, although “it is not yet possible to confirm a date”, “the Timorense Government is making excellent preparations”. He also thanked the Government “on behalf of the Holy See” “for the enormous, excellent, competent and efficient work being done to prepare for the Pope’s possible visit to Timor-Leste”. 
Monsignor Marco Sprizzi also said, “the Vatican delegation [that came to Timor-Leste in January] was very impressed with the work that the Timorense Government is doing in this preparation”.
During the same meeting, the Council of Ministers authorised an expenditure of US$ 15 million for an annual grant to the Timorense Episcopal Conference (CET – acronym in Portuguese), to be executed throughout 2024. This yearly grant, established by the agreement of August 14th, 2015, between Timor-Leste and the Holy See and by the Framework Agreement signed on June 16th, 2017, between the Government and the CET, is intended to support the social, educational and ecclesial government activities of the Catholic Church.
The state of play in implementing public contracts within the scope of the Dili municipal solid waste management project was also analysed.
