Meeting of the Council of Ministers on October 4th, 2023
Presidency of the Council of Ministers
Ninth Constitutional Government
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Press Release
Meeting of the Council of Ministers on October 4th, 2023
The Council of Ministers met at the Government Palace in Dili and approved the draft Government Resolution, presented by the Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Agio Pereira, on the 9th Constitutional Government Members' Code of Conduct. This self-regulatory commitment guides the conduct of the Government Members and the members of their cabinets in the performance of their duties.
The Code of Conduct covers essential principles such as pursuing the public interest, legality, transparency, impartiality and equality, integrity, honesty, urbanity, and inter-institutional respect. The document also requires that the Government Members adopt a stance of preventing and combating corruption and conflicts of interest. It also establishes rules regarding gifts and benefits and combating sexual harassment and harassment at work, ensuring integrity and responsibility in the civil service.
By adopting this code of conduct, the 9th Constitutional Government is reinforcing its commitment to transparency, ethics and the responsibility of its members in performing their duties while promoting citizens' trust in the Rule of Law institutions.
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The Council of Ministers approved a National Parliament Resolution draft Proposal, presented by the Minister of Finance, Santina José Rodrigues F. Viegas Cardoso, to ratify, for accession, the International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, signed in Brussels on June 14th, 1983, and, for acceptance, the Protocol of Amendment to the Convention drawn up by the Customs Cooperation Council on June 24th, 1986.
Given that this International Convention enshrines the adoption of a common tariff nomenclature at the universal level, already followed in Timor-Leste, and given that Timor-Leste is a member of the World Customs Organization and is in the process of joining the World Trade Organization and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Timor-Leste's integration into the international trade system will be strengthened by joining this Convention.
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Also approved was the draft Government Decree presented by the Minister of Finance, Santina José Rodrigues F. Viegas Cardoso, for the first amendment to Government Decree No. 18/2022 of May 11th, which regulates budget programs.
The experience of implementing programmes-based budgeting recommends that minor adjustments be made to the law, particularly regarding limiting the number of programmes for investment expenditure and structuring the programme for operating expenditure.
Thus, regarding the drawing up of budget programmes, it is now established that each budget title can include a maximum of three programmes associated with investment expenditure. The programme for operating expenditure is subdivided into sub-programmes covering institutional operation and institutional development. As for programmes related to investment expenditure, these are segmented into sub-programmes corresponding to the different areas of activity of the service and entity of the Public Administrative Sector, except for the title "General State Appropriation" and special titles without an organic basis.
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Also presented by the Minister of Finance, Santina José Rodrigues F. Viegas Cardoso, the draft Government Decree for the first amendment to Government Decree No. 19/2022, of May 11th, on budget classifiers was approved.
To make the new economic classification of public revenue and expenditure easier to understand, the intention is to reduce the revenue categories to eight and the expenditure categories to five while maintaining the same detail regarding headings and subheadings. The opportunity has also been taken to adjust the economic classification and functional classification codes, detail the categories of off-budget operations and make minor corrections to the classification.
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Lastly, the Council of Ministers decided to authorise the conclusion of negotiations for Timor-Leste's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as the signing of the necessary agreements, in a process that will be led by the Chief Negotiator for Timor-Leste's Accession to the WTO, the Vice Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Tourism and the Environment, Francisco Kalbuadi Lay, from October 7th to 11th, in Geneva, Switzerland. END
