The Government will defend its General State Budget’s (GSB) supplementary budget proposal for this year, 2010, at the National Parliament, on the last week of June.
The measure is foreseen in the Law of the Budget for Financial Management and, according to the Minister for Finance, Emília Pires, “the Government considers that the present situation justifies the drafting of this supplementary budget since there is a lot to be done. There are projects that are being developed, that need to move forward and therefore, they need a budgetary reinforcement so that they may be executed within the current year. We consider that it doesn’t make sense to delay the projects’ execution due to lack of funding”.
The supplementary budget foresees an increase from 178 million dollars to the 660 million that were approved by the National Parliament in November last, for the 2010 GSB.
The Minister for Finance refers to the Government’s ambition in achieving a sustained, rapid and effective development for Timor-Leste: “The more we execute, the more we implement, the quicker the Nation advances. As I have been referring, a nation is normally built within several years, but there are nations that have been built in 30 years. Timor-Leste wants to belong to this group of nations with miracle economies, and with investment is how we will be able to get there”.
To access this interview in full, listen to the program “Goodbye Conflict, Welcome Development” on Radio Timor-Leste, frequency 91.7 FM – in Tetum, this Tuesday, the 22nd June, at 7pm; in Portuguese, Saturday, the 26th June, at 7.30 pm.