Expenses vs. Revenue

The secretary of finance must begin serious review and analysis of government expenditure versus revenue generation. It is important to know the bulk of current public sector expenditure against actual collection per quarter to determine whether expenditure hasn’t outpaced revenues.

This effort must include the participation of the budget and management office, division of revenue and taxation and the department of commerce. Each must critically review specific task, the ultimate goal being to secure an overview of where the local government stands at this juncture.

Budget and management must critically review the budget of a bloated bureaucracy and put a period on any further hiring or additional expenses rather than generously pen-down a comma on expenditure we can ill-afford today and for the short and long-term. In other words, budget and management must inject substance to the governor’s commitment on austerity. We can’t allow such measure to remain a slogan.

The department of commerce must review how many businesses have permanently shut their doors and whether this is a continuing trend. Lest we forget, any further business closure would eventually translate into less revenue generation down the stretch. It’ll be interesting too to explore what measures have we taken to help them, if any, or have we equally been the source of their demise given our agility to grant them measures to help them pull through the deepening crisis.

The division of revenue and taxation must tally up actual collection and forward this information to the secretary of finance, budget and management. Compile all pertinent information so we can see how much are we spending, level of collection (improving or contracting), business closures and translation of such closure in dollar figure. This information must be published so that everybody in the public sector can understand the depth and seriousness of economic or financial contraction of revenues since two years ago.

Until we pin down the actual financial posture of the CNMI–expenditure vs. revenue collection–most public sector managers and employees would perpetuate the usual attitude of lack of responsibility and accountability. Therefore, we must take immediate review of expenses vs. money in the local coffer. It’s the only way to give all concerns who deal with spending taxpayers money a wake up call! Si Yuus Maase` yan ghilisow!