The Bahamas Government to Eliminate Deficit in FY 2023/24

• The Government’s prior year performance gives confidence that it remains on track to eliminate the fiscal deficit even if 2023-2024 “slides” from its original targets, a governance reformer said last night.
• Hubert Edwards, the Organisation for Responsible Governance’s (ORG) economic development committee head, told Tribune Business that while reaching a fiscal surplus “may take a bit longer” than the Government’s 2024-2025 goal this would not be “fatal” for its plans or The Bahamas generally.
• Additionally, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projecting that the Government will run a near-$379m deficit for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, he argued the Davis administration’s first goal “almost instantly becomes” beating that benchmark.
• Mr Edwards told this newspaper that while the Government’s $131.1Mn deficit target for the year is “aggressive”, given that this number is just one-third of the IMF’s forecast, there is likely “some wiggle room” provided the ultimate 2023-2024 outcome moves in the right direction.
• “There’s enough for us to be confident, even if 2023-2024 slides a bit further than expected, we will still be on target to eliminate the deficit and move into a surplus,” Mr Edwards told Tribune Business. “That may take a little bit longer, but I don’t think it’s a fatal circumstance.”
• The Government is projecting that it will achieve a $109Mn surplus, where its revenues exceed spending, in the 2024-2025 fiscal year. However, the IMF is still forecasting that The Bahamas will incur a deficit equal to 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) or nearly $290Mn that year, so it remains to be seen who is right.

(Source: The Tribune)