The Congress Government in St. George’s is planning to borrow “over EC$725 million” from regional and international lenders to help fund its 2025 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure commonly referred to as the national budget.
This was disclosed by Finance Minister Dennis Cornwall, who revealed on Tuesday that this year’s budget will be presented to the nation on “March 07th,” under the theme “Toward Vision 75: Grenada Resilient and Rising.”
Ahead of that, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, chaired by Minister Cornwall will meet on February 19 to approve the Estimates before they are tabled in Parliament.
“The Ministry of Finance might still need to fine tune that figure but I know that’s the ball park figure we are looking at…over EC$725 million for additional borrowing,” the minister told reporters at a press conference in St. George’s.
Minister Cornwall indicated that the Eastern Caribbean Securities Exchange (ECSE), Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and other international financial partners are among the sources from which Grenada will seek funding.
“Government has a wide array of persons, institutions or other avenues that (we) can actually use to seek those funding. We have friendly nations that we are going to be talking with to see if we can get funding from them at very concessionary rates,” he said.
The Dickon Mitchell-led government also plans to raise additional revenue by auctioning treasury bills and notes on the ECSE, a common method used to generate funds for public spending.
Until the budget is passed, the government is operating under the Public Finance Management Act No. 17 of 2015, which allows the Finance Minister to collect revenue and approve necessary expenditure for up to three months from the start of the financial year.
The Act also ensures that spending does not exceed one-fourth of the previous fiscal year’s approved budget.
A general warrant for EC$400 million has been issued to facilitate provisional spending for the first quarter of the year.
According to Minister Cornwall, once the 2025 Appropriation Act is approved in both Houses of Parliament, this expenditure will be formally accounted for within the official budget.
He encouraged all citizens and stakeholders to tune in on March 7 for the budget presentation, emphasising that it will outline the government’s plans to build a more resilient Grenada.
