by Linda Straker
- 2025 budget will be presented on 7 March
- Government will increase its borrowing on Eastern Caribbean Securities Exchange (ECSE)
- For 2023 and 2024, Grenada raised over $200 million on ECSE
The Government of Grenada will be looking to borrow over EC$700 million to finance the 2025 budget which will be presented on 7 March — approximately 10 weeks into the start of the 2025 fiscal year which is 1 January to 31 December.
Finance Minister Dennis Cornwall disclosed the figures during a news conference on Tuesday, 12 February. “We will present to the parliament an opportunity to have us borrow extra money for all our development projects that will be coming up. I will wait until that number is finalised before I announce it to the nation… I know what ballpark figure we are looking for — it is over EC$725 million,” he said when answering questions in the news conference.
The Finance Minister further disclosed that Government will be increasing its borrowing on the Eastern Caribbean Securities Exchange (ECSE) by auctioning more treasury bills. For the years 2023 and 2024, Grenada raised over $200 million on the exchange, and that money was to refinance its existing Treasury Bills and Treasury Notes currently on the market.
“To finance our 2025 budget, we may need to basically increase our borrowing from the Eastern Caribbean Stock Exchange. We are fine-tuning that number to find out what exactly that will be for the portion of debt that we will try and raise from the Eastern Caribbean stock exchange in terms of new borrowings and new treasury bills that will be issued, and as such, I will not be able to tell you exactly how much that will be as yet,” Cornwall said.
Following the passage of Hurricane Beryl on 1 July 2024, the Cabinet decided to suspend the fiscal rules of the Fiscal Resilience Act (FRA). Cornwall said that the suspension may continue until 2026 because the Government will not be reinstating it while it is in the recovery phase following the hurricane, which devastated the northern part of the country.
“We continue to build Grenada after the incident of Hurricane Beryl, and currently, we are in the reconstruction phase of this activity, so in 2025, all our efforts will be concentrated on rebuilding Grenada, and so we will not reinstate the fiscal rule until we are at the end of the rebuilding process. So it can take you the whole of 2025 and parts of 2026,” Cornwall told reporters.
Looks like these bunch of jokers already ran the country to the ground.
Prepare for for a rough times ahead on this island!
Grenada is being sucked dry by the business class….Outrageous…..