Finance Minister to submit 2027 budget on time Tuesday, moving St. Maarten toward historic first

GREAT BAY--Minister of Finance Marinka Gumbs is scheduled to formally submit the draft 2027 National Budget to Parliament on Tuesday, September 8, at 2:00pm, meeting the legal deadline for submission and moving St. Maarten closer to what government has described as a historic first in the country’s budget process.

The draft National Ordinance establishing the 2027 budget will be presented to the President of Parliament in the General Assembly Chamber. Under Article 38 of the National Accountability Ordinance, the draft budget must be submitted to Parliament no later than the second Tuesday of September.

The submission comes after months of government preparation aimed at ending the country’s long-running pattern of late budgets.

In June, after the Council of Ministers unanimously approved the draft 2027 budget, Gumbs said St. Maarten was in position to have an approved national budget before the end of the year for the first time in the country’s history. Government described that stage of the process as a “historic milestone” and said the 2027 cycle reflected a deliberate restructuring of how the national budget is prepared.

Gumbs had also told Parliament during the handling of the 2026 budget that the longstanding cycle of delayed budgets could not continue and that work on the 2027 budget had already started months earlier than in previous years.

The Minister said the new approach involved earlier planning, closer coordination among ministries and stronger accountability throughout the budget process.

“We have shown that institutional reform is possible. We have demonstrated that with planning, discipline, and collective ownership, St. Maarten can deliver its national budget on time,” Gumbs said in June.

She added that government had now “raised the standard,” saying the next responsibility was to continue improving the quality of budget submissions and refining the timeline each year.

The timely submission is especially significant because St. Maarten has struggled for years with budgets being presented and approved late, often well into the budget year itself.

The 2026 budget, for example, was still being handled by Parliament in June and July, a situation Gumbs herself acknowledged was later than it should have been. She used that process to argue that government needed to break the cycle and begin preparing future budgets much earlier.

The 2027 budget process was therefore started earlier and was accompanied by what government described as its first Strategic Budget Session, involving ministers, secretaries-general, financial controllers, chiefs of staff and the policy-based budgeting team.

The draft budget was approved by the Council of Ministers on June 25 and subsequently submitted to the Committee for Financial Supervision, Cft, for advice, before moving through the remaining constitutional stages.

The Cft had previously noted that government had started preparing the 2027 budget on time and had shared an extensive planning schedule, although it also warned that delays could still arise if ministries failed to submit required information on time.

Tuesday’s submission therefore marks one of the most important steps yet in testing whether the new budget process can deliver what Gumbs has been promising: a return to timely budgeting and, ultimately, an approved national budget before the start of the new year.

The submission and subsequent media briefing will be carried live through Parliament’s broadcast platforms.

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