Gov’t Embarking on Rationalisation of Public Bodies

Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Audley Shaw, says the Government has embarked on a comprehensive rationalisation of public bodies.

This, he said, will involve “a series of phased and sequenced actions over the next couple of fiscal years, whereby public bodies will, based on time-bound action plans, be merged, closed, privatised or reintegrated into the public sector”.

“This reform of our public bodies is an important component of the consolidation of Government’s cash resources, which has involved prior reforms such as the implementation of a Central Treasury Management System (CTMS),” Mr. Shaw said.

The Finance Minister was closing the 2017/18 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives on Wednesday (March 22).

He informed that this consolidation, which is in keeping with international best practice for Public Financial Management (PFM), will allow the Government to record in the Consolidated Fund its revenue flows from all sources, while ensuring that the use of these resources is properly recorded as government expenditures.

“Over time, this will yield significant cash flow benefits when compared with the current situation where public bodies receive and independently manage large inflows of resources, which are not necessarily utilised immediately, but are not immediately available to the Government,” Mr. Shaw said.

“The Government currently can request a distribution under the Public Bodies Management and Accountability Act; however, these distributions can only practically take place occasionally,” he pointed out.

Mr. Shaw noted that the move to redirect funds of select entities into the Consolidated Fund, as opposed to keeping separate accounts in commercial banks, is the initial step in this phase of the PFM reform.

The entities are the Culture, Health, Arts, Science, and Education (CHASE) Fund, Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA), and the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF).