Fiscal Council legislation by April

Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke has said that the legislation to establish the Fiscal Council, which is expected to ensure that the Government maintains sound economic policies, will be tabled by April next year.

International consultants have been engaged to help set up the body, the minister also said.

“This is something that, as minister of finance, I proposed, and I am very happy to see that it has been so [well-received] by the public and by the media that I get a lot of questions about when it is going to happen,” Clarke said at the Ministry of Finance last week.

“That’s the definition of policy success,” Clarke said. “The first period was generating support for the idea to be adopted by stakeholders as something that made sense, as something that was credible. The second phase, was we engaged international consultants. A consulting firm that was headed by the Independent Fiscal Institution, they put in place a series of recommendations. We then, as a third stage, got technical advice from the IMF (International Monetary Fund). We engaged with the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF, who were able to give a lot of advice about how to go about it and how to implement it, what the features ought to be, and we were able to benefit from a comparative analysis of what occurs in other countries, and then the fourth stage was to take it to Cabinet for ... [approval], and that has happened,” Clarke explained.

Draft instructions are being prepared for submission to the chief parliamentary counsel.

Fiscal councils are permanent, independent, non-partisan institutions that are created by legislation and staffed by competent, experienced, and technically proficient people who help to promote economically sustainable fiscal policies across political cycles.