Our revenue and spending figures are not state secrets

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5: It is Friday August 5, 2011. One hundred and twenty-seven days after the Government’s 2010/11 year end.

In the February 2011 Budget Statement, the Minister for Finance stated that revenue for FY 2010/11 might be $977 million; but this was after she had forecast revenue of $1,058 million.

Certainly projected revenue was way higher than her much lower but estimated actual revenue.

Because the Minister of Finance was speaking 34 days before the March 31, 2011 year-end, the minister can be properly forgiven if the reported $977 million was out by a million or two or three — and I forgive that.

Pie-in-the-sky

But what about the fact that $977 million is $81 million DOWN on the Minister for Finance’s ‘pie-in-the-sky’ projection of $1,058 million? [I first referred to revenue projection as ‘pie-in-the-sky’ in a column published June 4, 2010].

Bermuda’s national accounts for Financial Year 2010/11 were closed four months ago. In any well-run corporate entity — and Bermuda is simply a billion dollar corporate entity — by this stage everybody should know what the real figures are.

By now, in a good accounting system, any errors should be down to  +/- $1,000 overall.

Assuming that Bermuda’s Minister for Finance is an efficient manager of Bermuda’s national finances, and assuming that the men and women who staff the Ministry of Finance are all good at their jobs, it should now be possible for either or both of the Financial Secretary or the Minister to answer two questions and deliver two numbers.

Question One: What is the actual revenue that Government recognizes for FY 2010/11? In other words, was it the $977 million thrown out to Parliament on February 25, 2011, or is it something materially different from $977 million? What is it?

Question Two: What is the actual total spending that Government recognizes for FY 2010/11? In other words, was it the $1,201 million thrown out to Parliament on February 25, 2011, or is it something materially different from $1,201 million? What is it? 

The annually produced blue Budget book displays totals of Revenue and Expenditure over a ten-year period. I am asking that the two figures be tabulated in exactly the same way.

Am I asking that hush-hush state secrets be divulged? No. In fact, by September 30, 2011 — six months after year end — every well-run corporation will have its previous year figures available for wide distribution to all of its shareholders as well as to the whole of the financial community.

A public document

The annually produced Financial Statements of the Consolidated Fund is Government’s annual financial report to its shareholders — which is all of us lot. It is a public document, not a hush-hush State secret.

Fact? FY 2010/11’s Financial Statements have already been used as public documents. They were the documents shown to the bankers at BNTB as support for the minister’s taking up of the new $200 million loan facility that was extended by BNTB on June 24 of this year.

Can the two numbers I’ve asked for be manipulated and massaged? Sure they can. But if they are, the truth will erupt the instant the Financial Statements are allowed to arrive in the public domain. Any material differences would raise serious questions.

Publicly, formally, politely, and within my rights as a taxpaying citizen, I ask that either the Financial Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, or the Minister of Finance herself, supply the honest and correct answers, in the format used in the blue Budget book, to the two questions: What is the total Revenue reported for FY 2010/11? And what is the total Expenditure reported for FY 2010/11?