Premier Wheatley presents $488.6M national budget for 2025
The budget represents $4,961,708.00 more than the $483,738,163.00 budget for 2024 passed in the HoA on December 19, 2023.
Recurrent Expenditure: $407.3M
$407,374,500.00 of the total budget amount will go towards Recurrent Expenditure.
“Madam Speaker, we continue to recognise our good stewardship in building and maintaining positive balances in our legislated funds and will therefore be withdrawing a total of twenty million, seven-eight thousand, nine hundred and forty-nine dollars ($20,078,949.00) to support recurrent expenditure in the 2025 budget,” Premier Wheatley said during the delivery of his third Budget Address as Minister of Finance.
Capital Expenditure: $60.6M
$60,689,000.00 will go towards Capital Expenditure. Fifty-two million, five hundred thousand, and two hundred dollars ($52,500,200.00) has been allocated to fund development projects and eight million, one hundred and eighty-eight thousand, and eight hundred dollars ($8,188,800.00) to fund capital acquisitions.
Projected Revenue: $407.9M
Project Revenue has been given as $407,931,923.00.
$379,889,678.00 of the Projected Revenue will be received from taxes, including payroll, property tax, taxes on goods and services and international trade.
$25, 510,245.00 will be collected on other revenues including property income and sales of goods and services and other fees, and 2,532,000.00 from grants.
“Madam Speaker, to put our projected revenues in context, in 2015 we were projected to collect $311,136,000.00. In 2025 we are projected to collect nearly 100 million more dollars than we did in 2015. This is evidence that our economy has continued to produce even after natural disasters, global pandemics, and political shocks,” Premier Wheatley said.
Dr Wheatley said his Government continues to seek new and innovative ways to enhance revenue collections and generate new revenue streams.
‘Make way for the positive day’
In concluding his over 2-hour long Budget Address, an optimistic Premier Wheatley called on all residents of the Virgin Islands to do what Bob Marley said: “Make way for the positive day”.
Calling it a new day in the Virgin Islands, Premier Wheatley said: “Let us all see the glass as half full and see the possibilities and opportunities to lay blocks of success to help build a sustainable Virgin Islands. We are better together, even if we don’t always agree.
“Let us embrace the positive changes of the reforms we have just completed. Let us agree on a vision for our Constitution, let us put country first as we begin Laying the Blocks of Success in 2025.”
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18 Responses to “Premier Wheatley presents $488.6M national budget for 2025”
Millions of dollars and look at the public highways
Millions of dollars and district clinics poor shape
Millions of dollars and government owes lights bills
Entertainment:
say after me entertainment
The melanated beings warmly welcomed them even though they were spiritually warned of the chaos and destruction that would befall them, if they did not work together to prevent a possible invasion/colonization/imperialism/aparthied.
The Caucasoid used gifts and trinkets combined with religion to deceive and soften the fighting nature of our ancestors, in turn causing internal fights and wars for wealth and power among our tribes and clans.
We were subsequently enslaved in shackles with balls and chains and made to walk hundreds of miles to the coastlands of various parts of West Africa.
Our children were put to walk before us to keep us all subdued.
We spent up to three months at a time in dark dungeons, soaked and entrenched in our own and each other’s blood, sweat, tears, vomit, piss and filth.
We were then packed tightly and transported to the Americas via ships, one of which carried the name J.E.S.U.S.
From the get-go, we were raped and buck-broken, lynched, beated, starved or given the leftovers, spat upon, used for their entertainment and mockery, forced back-breaking labour in inhumane conditions, hung, shot, chopped, tortured, torn apart by animals, divided into field and house slaves, bodies used as breeding tools and pornography while being indoctrinated with the fallacies of religion.
Spiritual spells were also cast upon us to keep us blind, confused and confounded, helpless, hopeless, poor, rejected and scorned the world over.
Being left to die, we did the best that we could to pull ourselves out of the pits dug for our burial not realizing that systems had been established to keep us vulnerably oppressed dependent upon and begging for more help and handouts from the British Empire.
Their Modus Operandi has always been to maintain narcissistic power and control by bread-crumbing, triangulating, using and misusing us while at the same time, taking credit for our identity and inventions.
With destruction of our creations, we can continue to beg for their rescue and salvation.
To The Honourable Premier, Leader of the Opposition and every other elected member of the Virgin Islands Government, in honour and respect of the strength and resilience of our Ancestors, we the people of The Virgin Islands choose NOT to repeat our past mistakes.
You are hereby asked to self correct by instantaneous repenting (turning from your distorted ways, casting down and destroying all idols of selfishness, greed and corruption within before it is forced by The Most High.
To the Governor and United Kingdom, your time of pillaging, chaos, death and destruction is over. Stand down lest you be completely destroyed.
To the people of these beautiful Virgin Islands, these islands are ours to manage in peace, harmony and justice and the only ones who can make that happen is us.
We will no longer seek hook-ups, personal favours or look down on our own clansmen, tribesmen and loved ones, who were shipped to other islands.
We all repent and now turn from all our wicked ways so that we can re-member who we are and rebuild our island nations in honour and reverence of the prayers offered up on our behalf by our Ancestors.
Our time starts now. Ashe.
In another comment, I asked why Bermuda and Cayman Islands, sister OTs, both have $$$B budgets while the VI on average has $0.5B budget? Are their revenue streams vastly different? What could the VI do with an additional $0.5B annually? Our economy needs to diversify, deepen and strengthen if we want to roll with big boys.
Success is measured by delivering positive outcomes within budgetary limits. The bottom line is there is no scientific way to budget. Political scientist V.O. Key in his 1940 seminal essay, “ The Lack of a Budgetary Theory” pointed this out. Further, former NY City Mayor John Lindsay notes science cannot for all budgets arepokitical . Indeed, all budgets are political documents, policy decisions, judgments, choices, priorities, etc. Since budgets are political,,they share characteristics of a game; therefore managers must master how to play the game. Every manager must understand how much money is needed to operate, how much money is spent, how it spends allocated resources, why money is spent the way it does,, etc. Furthermore , all managers must anticipate budget cuts during the fiscal year and have a plan(s) of adjusting to the cuts. Managers must be aware before having budget problems pointed out yo them by others,ie, auditors, finance, and accounting officers, etc. My take is that there will probably never be enough resources to meet all needs in is fiscal year. The art is cutting without cutting services. That is the magic trick.
A wise sage notes,” one can do anything one wants to do, but one cannot do everything. “ The art, skill, etc., of getting things done , attaining positive outcomes , is maximizing budgeting efficiency. Managing money cannot be put on autopilot; it is a hands-on affair, since it is the PEOPLE’s money and the PEOPLE expect value for money.