 the following motion whereas it is provided by section 63 1a of the public finance management act number 14 of 2020 the act that the minister of finance may by affirmative resolution of parliament borrow from a bank or other financial institution for the capital or current expenditure of government and whereas it is further provided by section 64 of the act that money borrowed by the government must be paid into and from part of the consolidated fund and whereas the minister of finance considers it necessary to borrow an amount of US dollars 102 million 128 thousand 294 from the export import bank of the Republic of China to provide budgetary support for the fiscal year 2022 2023 and whereas the loan is repairable in 20 years commencing from the date of first disbursement of the loan inclusive of a grace period of five years and whereas the loan is repairable in 30 consecutive equal or as nearly equal as possible semi annual installments the first of which must be made on the last day of the 66 months from the date the first advance under the loan is made by the export import bank or Republic of China and whereas interest is repairable at the rate of six months Chicago mercantile exchange terms secured overnight financing rate plus 0.2 percent and 1.25 percent per annum and whereas if the full amount of the loan has been drawn down each principal installment must be in the amount of us three million 404 thousand 277 except that the last principal installment was the amount of us three million 404 thousand 261 be it resolved that the parliament of arises the minister for finance to borrow the amount of us 102 million 128 thousand 294 from from the export import bank of the Republic of China to provide budgetary support for the fiscal year 2022 to 2023 bid for the resolved the loan is repairable in 20 years commencing from the date of the first disbursement of the loan inclusive of a grace period of five years the loan is repairable in 30 consecutive equal or as nearly equal as possible semi annual installments the first of which must be made on the last day of the 66 months from the date the first advance under the loan is made by the export import bank of the Republic of China interest is repairable at the rate of the six months Chicago mercantile exchange term secured overnight financing plus zero rate plus 0.2 percent and 1.25 percent per annum if the full amount of the loan has been drawn down each principal installment must be made in the amount of us dollars three million 404 thousand 277 except that the last principal installment must be in the amount of us dollars three million 404 thousand 266 261 dollars mr speaker the resolution as read before parliament is to seek the approval of the government to borrow us dollars 102.1 million or easy 277.4 million from the export import bank of the Republic of China for budgetary support for the fiscal year 2022 2023 mr speaker in my inaugural budget address on march 29 i proposed and parliament approved expenditure in the amount of 1.8 for 2 billion for the fiscal year 2022 to 2023 to finance that expenditure i indicated that revenue and grants in the amount of 1.3 to 7 billion will be used and after taking consideration refunds the government will have to borrow 505.12 million as was stated clearly in the budget statement mr speaker i further indicated that the amount of 425.4 million would come from external sources and this is why we are here today to borrow from the xim xim import bank mr speaker mr speaker the overall objective is as follows to provide budgetary support to the government for its national budget for the fiscal year 2022 2023 to meet governments ongoing recurrent obligations and capital expenditures to settle long-standing cash related issues which have hindered progress towards fiscal sustainability and complete recovery mr speaker this loan provides a rare opportunity to significantly alter the macroeconomic and social landscape of sen lusha the loan will assist the government and people of sen lusha in dealing with one economic recovery and growth two health expenditure three infrastructural programs for other recurrent expenditure mr speaker more specifically these funds will be utilized to reprofile expensive components of the central government official public debt stock fund social and capital projects and eliminate some high levels of liabilities such as payables and our standing amounts due to land acquisition and other efforts mr speaker the loan will return to effect a shift in the following areas debt reduction and reprofiling central government debt mr speaker stands at 3.9 billion of which bonds and notes contribute 51.6 percent of the debt portfolio and is the most expensive of the government debt the average interest rate of bonds are seven percent and account for 97 million in interest payments annually significantly reducing this interest expense can result in savings in excess of 40 million dollars annually this component of the project will support governments on going expenditure that is a mac towards economic recovery post post the downturn in economic growth experience by sen lusha of over 26 percent mr speaker what this means is that the government will try to convert some of the short term loans into longer term instruments just saving on on interest payments some 40 million dollars worth of interest payments will be saved which can be used for for for other purposes mr speaker that is called reprofiling of the loans for health expenditure this component of the speaker will support ongoing current expenditure for the health sector it will cover funds to be expanded on covid-19 health response and will cover retroactive payments for the ability include related to the health center and mr speaker that means that the the the debt that we have for quarantine we inherited a lot of these debts mr speaker that these debts are going to be paid from from that loan mr speaker because as you know covid was very expensive and in spite of the fact that the last government borrowed over 300 million dollars in doing that period there are still debt and lab is left to be paid so this loan will help pay some of this inherited debt infrastructural programs this component will support ongoing infrastructural programs that commence prior to and during the covid-19 crisis the government will undertake to utilize monies on the discontinent to upgrade we develop and expand infrastructure in keeping with the developmental agenda part of that money mr speaker will be used to fund some of the expensive dfcs the the design finance contracts that will that will inherited from the the the last government and for over five-year period mr speaker which is rather short term for the construction of roads so we're going to use some of that money to to pay down on these dfcs to give us some more fiscal space mr speaker reducing the stock of payables this component of the project will be channel funds to the domestic economy for the settlement of long-standing arrest local contractors service providers and international agencies mr speaker at the end of november the stock november 2022 the stock of payables was 132 million dollars with the majority mr speaker outstanding is and the total 63 the majority of it was over 120 days inherit mr speaker and totaling 63.5 million of 48 percent of this debt so these payables mr speaker they've been there for a long time they've been there for a very long time so we look we are looking to see if we can use some of that money to pay down on these payables which will again help the local economy because we are going to be paying these merchants and and these suppliers that the government owes for a long time mr speaker mr speaker will also try to reduce some of the land settlements you know mr speaker government land government acquired land and they have not paid the have not paid the people for who they acquired that land for and we have value is value mr speaker that government owes about 46.3 million dollars in land valuation which is owed to two people from mr government acquired the land 46.3 million dollars mr speaker and mr speaker you must note that when government acquires these lands the interest rate is six percent mr speaker on the interest rate so this increases all all the time so we hope that we can use some of that money to pay the the suppliers for the land that was acquired mr speaker and that land that was acquired for a long time a long time before so it's not only land acquired during our 17 months it's been acquired for a long time mr speaker mr speaker looking at all the options and the interest rate is clear in the budget that the government will try to reprofile his debt that means instead of looking for all our needs on the short term market basically the rsm the government will try to get some long term financing long term financing of a five-year grace period which would be repealed in 20 years mr speaker and the government of the and the government of taiwan after some negotiations some serious negotiations agreed to profile to help us with a long term loan mr speaker which will meet these requirements and this these loans were these loans mr speaker they were confirmed in an agreement between the government of sen lucha and the government of taiwan these loans were confirmed for a period and they are in they are in the agreement which is made between the government of taiwan and the people of sen lucha so that money is definite money that we will get all things we need go mr speaker we've decided to allocate this loan the 102 million u.s. dollars in the following manner 146.8 million to be allocated towards budgetary supports in the fiscal year 2020 2023 of which 92.9 million will be allocated for recurrent expenditure while the sum of 53.8 million will be allocated for capital expenditure the sum of 42.6 million to economic recovery and growth which include reduction in long standing high priority payables the sum of 69.3 million for infrastructure programs which includes settling long standing high priority land acquisition liabilities the sum of saying 2.1 million for health response and the sum of 105.9 million for recurrent expenditure to include payments to ensure the contribution of government operations in the provision of goods and services to the general public mr speaker the terms and conditions of the loan are similar to other loans negotiated in the eixing bank and it's considered concessory financing of the long term type mr speaker mr speaker the repayments begin five years after five years and they will be basically 2.4 million dollars and in equal semi annual installments of 3.404 million dollars and they will begin five years after the loan has been fully this both mr speaker i mean mr speaker before i i take my my seat and and invite honorable members to support this resolution mr speaker i just want to clarify a few things on the government's debt profile mr speaker in parliaments and again if you look at page 63 in my budget address you will see it's clearly outlined mr speaker mr speaker since we've been government for the last 17 months we've borrowed seven times we've come to parliament seven times to borrow from these seven times mr speaker and i i'll i'll line it satan instrument number 2022 number 94 we borrowed 21.6 million dollars and that was for the census mr speaker and that was the census that i started we had to borrow to continue that debt was in code before our time number 2022 number 92 mr speaker we borrowed from covid for for covid from the eib 76.4 million again that's something we inherited which we had to we had to come to parliament to to confirm it and to get parliament to pass it mr speaker and 27 million dollars from the export import bank again debt that we inherited we had to come to parliament for that resolution mr speaker we also borrowed 20.2 million dollars from the self for the sulfur springs which from the canadian clean energy project which is the which was converting the sulfur springs the geofoamal from the sulfur springs mr speaker it's all debt which we inherited which we had to come to parliament 20.2 million dollars mr so for our 17 months in government the only new debt that we've come to parliament to borrow for is 27 million dollars for the small and medium size enterprises sm alone from the caribbean development bank mr speaker 0.5 million dollars for the moka housing scheme which will support which will help the people in moka who are in a desperate situation the old the credit union the old the credit union 500 000 dollars and to assist the credit union government took over the low mr speaker so you can see the credit union to continue doing what it had to do mr speaker and for the blue economy 48.6 million dollars mr speaker that is these are the facts as it relates to borrowing which is government has borrowed and now we come into parliament to borrow to fund the budget for 2020 2023 for 102 million u.s. dollars these are the facts mr speaker clearly outlined in in the budget clearly outlined that that is what the government has done and the government is meeting its obligation what you must note mr speaker is for the last from march from the last budget to now the government has financed its operations basically from cash flow and basically from from short term borrowing on the regional securities market mr speaker this is how the government has been financing its operations so this is the first time that we are coming to the parliament to borrow new money to finance the 2022 2023 budget mr speaker these are the facts as it relates to to the budget nothing hidden nothing hidden nothing done undercover nothing done to try try to deflect clearly stated in the budget that we have to fund the the budget by these means and I've outlined how we borrowed it and what we borrowed before mr speaker what what we can the parliaments before apart from the free loot that I've mentioned was to meet obligations that the last government took and we keep the parliament to formalize it for resolution mr speaker I thank you and I ask honorable members to support this resolution thank you mr speaker