LH husu Parlamentu atu rejeita Orsamentu Retifikativu

Link to this article in English

Iha loro-kraik loron 12 Jullu, Parlamentu Nasional Timor-Leste hahú debate kona-ba proposta husi Governu atu aumenta tokon $391 ba  Orsamentu Estadu 2016 no transfere and withdraw liu dala tolu kompara ho Rendimentu Sustentável Estimativa husi Fundu Petrolíferu tinan ida ne'e. Orsida kalan, sira aprova retifikasaun iha jeneralidade ho unanimidade. Sira sei halo votasaun final molok sira halo deskansa loron Sesta semana ida ne'e. Maske Parlamentu la konvite sosiedade sivíl atu fó hanoin, La'o Hamutuk hakerek submisaun ida atu ezije sira atu rejeita proposta ida ne'e, ne'ebé sei gasta osan ba infrastrutura fíziku, inklui projetu balun ho benefísiu bele duvida. Artigu tuir mai hetan redasaun uitoan, no aumenta ligasaun no gráfiku ruma:

Submisaun ba Parlamentu Nasionál RDTL
Hosi La’o Hamutuk
Kona-ba Proposta Orsamentu Retifikativu 2016
12 Jullu 2016

Atu finansia projetu infrastrutura boot sira balu, Governu Timor-Leste propoin atu gasta tokon $391 tan iha tinan ida ne’e atu aumenta ba biliaun $1.562 ne’ebé aloka ona iha Orsamentu orijinál 2016. Orsamentu biliaun $1.953 ida ne’e sei sai orsamentu ida ne’ebé boot liu durante istória Timor-Leste. La’o Hamutuk preokupa teb-tebes katak proposta revizaun ida ne’e sei halo hotu Timor-Leste nia riku-soin limitadu ne’e, ne’ebé tuir mai sei hatún sustentabilidade Fundu Petrolíferu nian liu hosi soe tan osan povu nian iha projetu sira ne’ebé nia benefísiu la klaru.

Mega-projetu sira presiza analiza no planu ho sériu liu tan.

La’o Hamutuk dala barak ona hakerek ba distintu deputadu/a sira kona-ba ami nia preokupasaun ba projetu infrastrutura sira ne’ebé harii hosi kompañia rai li’ur sira ho osan povu nian – inklui Tasi Mane (Suai Supply Base, Auto-estrada Kosta Súl no Refinaria Betano), ZEESM, Aeroportu Dili no Portu Tibar – ne’ebé sei la fó benefísiu ida ne’ebé sufisiente ba jerasaun ohin no futuru Timor oan sira, ne’ebé sai tiha objetivu prinsipál hosi Fundu Petrolíferu tuir Lei haruka.

Ami husu katak projetu sira ne’e tenke planeia ho di’ak, ho analiza ba nia kustu, benefísiu no risku nian atu hare keta nia vantajen sira ne’e boot liu fali ho kustu finanseiru, sosiál no ambientál nian. Ohin, Governu husu ba Parlamentu atu aumenta montante duplu ba montante Fundu Infrastrutura ne’ebé ita-boot sira aprova iha fulan neen liu ba, hodi hatudu momoos hela mai ita hotu katak laiha duni planu ne’ebé realistiku. Iha tempu ne’ebá, Ministériu Finansa no Ministériu Obras Públiku hatene ona katak sira presiza hela osan tokon $131 durante 2016 atu selu ba Portu Tibar, maibé sira falla atu informa ba Parlamentu, hodi halo ita boot sira aprova orsamentu ne’ebé la sufisiente.

Ohin, sira halo erru opostu ida. Kontratu ba Suai Supply Base rejeita ona hosi Tribunal Rekursu, no kompañia sai ona hosi projetu, nune’e iha ne’ebá sei laiha dalan atu halo tenderizasaun foun ida ne’ebé lejítimu tuir tempu atu halo konstrusaun ne’ebé bele hahú iha tinan ida ne’e. Maibé Governu hakarak Parlamentu atu aloka tokon $127 tan ba Tasi Mane durante 2016. Keta Governu hakarak goza de’it ita-boot sira?

Timor-Leste la’ós ona ka labele finje ona atu halo despeza sustentável.

Proposta atu aumenta orsamentu ne’e sei finansia tomak hosi levantamentu hosi Fundu Petrolíferu. Proposta ida ne’e husu atu gasta 9.2% hosi total rekursu petrolíferu Timor-Leste nian iha tinan ida ne’e, ka dala tolu kompara ho Rendimentu Sustentável Estimativa.

Fulan kotuk, FMI publika sira nia Relatóriu Article IV ida ne’e foun liu kona-ba Timor-Leste, foka sai katak:

“Mezmu ho poupansa prudente hosi nia riku-soin petróleu iha Fundu Petrolíferu fó xumasu finansial ida hodi ajuda atu labele lakon rendimentu tanba presu mina-rai global ne’ebé monu foin daudauk ne’e, maibé lala’ok fiskál tuir planu despeza kapitál ne’ebé eziste hela ne’e la sustentável tanba Fundu Petrolíferu sei hotu iha longu prazu iha nivel levantamentu ohin loron nian.”

Relatóriu ida ne’e publika ho konsentimentu hosi Ministériu Finansa RDTL. Ekonomista sira iha FMI no Banku Mundial la imajina katak planu despeza kapitál sei sai la sustentável liu tan iha tinan ida ka rua hafoin sira hakerek relatóriu ne’e.

La’o Hamutuk halo ona projesaun antes katak Fundu Petrolíferu sei gasta hotu iha tinan sanulu nia laran. Maske nune’e, karik proposta atu halo gastu as ho arbiru iha retifikasaun ida ne’e nudár ezemplu atu halo tuir, entaun Fundu Petrolíferu sei hotu lalais liu.

Maske alokasaun orsamentu ba infrastrutura fíziku kontinua sa’e, maibé investimentu iha rekursu umanu, servisu báziku no ekonomia naun petrolíferu nafatin la adekuadu, no despeza ba asisténsia saúde, edukasaun no agrikultura tun durante tinan rua ikus ne’e. Revizaun orsamentál ida ne’e tuir mai sei aumenta despeza ba mega-projetu infrastrutura fíziku duvida sira. Gráfiku tuir mai hatudu hela oinsá infrastrutura fíziku sei hetan osan barak liu tan duke setór sira.

Maibé, Fundu Petrolíferu hetan ona presaun maka’as, no nia saldu biliaun $16.591 iha fin de Maiu 2016 ne’e menus liu tokon $541 kompara ho nia saldu iha fulan 12 liu ba. Informasaun ne’ebé fornese iha Livru Orsamentu 1 kona-ba futuru rendimentu petrolíferu inklui erru no distorsaun lubuk. Ami hakarak atu bolu Parlamentu nia atensaun ba faktu importante balu:

• Rendimentu mina-rai kontinua tun tanba kampu Kitan ne’ebé taka ona, produsaun Bayu-Undan ne’ebé tun no presu mina-rai global ne’ebé kontinua tun. Tinan ba projesaun presu “prudente” ne’ebé Ministériu Finansa nafatin uza mak presu Mina-matak Brent iha 2016 ne’ebé nia rata-rata $64/70/barríl. To ohin loron, presu Brent loloos iha $39.97/barríl. No iha Jullu 2016, projesaun hosi U.S. Energy Information Administration katak presu ba Brent sei iha rata-rata $43.73 durante tinan 2016 tomak. (Projesaun ba presu prudente ne’e maizumenus menus liu $8 kompara ho presu “referénsia” EIA nian).

• Maibé, tanba liu 90% hosi Bayu-Undan nia rezerva supa hotu ona, nune’e, presu mina-rai iha futuru sei la haló diferensa boot ba finansa Timor-Leste nian mezmu karik presu atu sai fali. Durante fulan lima primeiru iha 2016, JPDA nia produsaun barríl sira ne’ebé prodús kada fulan tun 5% kompara ho produsaun durante 2015, no tun 33% kompara ho produsaun iha 2012. Ida ne’e sei kontinua atu tun tanba kampu ne’e besik atu maran ona. 

• ConocoPhillips no kompañia sira seluk sei rai maizumenus tokon $125 hosi buat ne’ebé loloos sira tenke selu mai Timor-Leste iha tinan ida ne’e atu rekupera avaliasaun ida ne’ebé demais liu atu fó fila taxa husi 2012.

• Reseita Petrolíferu ne’ebé rai hela iha Fundu Petrolíferu durante trimestre primeiru iha 2016 hamutuk tokon $125.3, no karik ida ne’e kontinua iha nivel ne’ebé hanesan ida ne’e, entaun total Timor-Leste nia reseita petróleu no gas iha tinan ida ne’e sei ba tokon $501. Maibé Orsamentu kontinua ekspeta atu hetan rendimentu tokon $719 iha tinan 2016. 

• Retornu hosi investimentu Fundu Petrolíferu Timor-Leste nian durante 2015 ne’e menus hosi zero, maibé Livru Orsamentu kontinua uza predisaun ida ne’ebé optimistiku no espekulativu katak sira sei hetan 5.7% retornu kada tinan. Merkadu global kontinua la’o volatil. 

• Maizumenus tokon $641 hosi Fundu ne’e ita investe iha valór mobiliáriu sira ne’ebé denominar iha British Pounds (Moeda Britániku), no valór pound ne’ebé monu hafoin referendu Brexit (Reino Unido sai hosi Uniaun Europeia) iha fulan kotuk halo Timor-Leste lakon tokon $63 tanba valór hosi mudansa moeda. 

• Projesaun figura RSE iha Ministra Finansa nia karta ba Primeiru Ministru iha 23 Juñu (pajina 65) fó impresaun ida ne’ebé la loos, tanba sira halo asumsaun sala kona-ba total levantamentu hosi Fundu Petrolíferu hafoin 2016 sei limita tuir RSE, buat ne’ebé la’ós Governu planeia atu halo.

Konklusaun

Nune’e, ho faktu ekonómiku importante hirak ne’e, La’o Hamutuk husu ba Parlamentu atu la aprova orsamentu retifikativu ida ne’e. Governu promote atu revee Planu Estratéjiku Dezenvolvimentu Nasionál ne’ebé tama ona ba tinan lima, no revee ida ne’e tenke halo molok ita-boot sira aprova despeza ne’ebé arbiru no laiha hanoin ba montante besik dollar tokon atus hat liu – montante ida ne’ebé ekivalente ho maizumenus $6 ba kada uma-kain Timor oan kada loron, ne’ebé liu 40% ita nia ema sira hetan ba sira nia moris lor-loron. Aumenta tokon $400 ne’e liu fali osan ne’ebé Timor-Leste sei gasta iha tinan ida ne’e ba saúde, edukasaun, polísia, militár, agrikultura no solidariedade sosiál tomak.

Livru Orsamentu 1 justifika despeza retifikativu ida ne’e sa’e tanba “ho hanoin katak tinan oin nudár tinan eleisaun nian, nune’e iha tinan ne’ebá sei iha orsamentu ida ne’ebé moderadu liu ne’ebé sei labele akomoda despeza sira ne’e.” Iha Timor-Leste nia esperiénsia, Orsamentu Jerál Estadu 2012 mak orsamentu ida ne’ebé boot liu iha istória Timor-Leste --- to ohin loron.

La nesesáriu atu lalais hodi aprova orsamentu ida ne’e sein audiénsia públiku ka Analiza, konsulta, no debate ne’ebé adekuadu. Governu sei nafatin iha ne’e bainhira ita-boot sira fila hosi resesu, Fundu Infrastrutura sei la mamuk, no transferénsia sira ne’ebé autoriza hosi orsamentu 2016 orijinál sei la gasta hotu.

Tuir Konstituisaun, kada Deputadu/a responsavel atu reprezenta sidadaun Timor-Leste tomak kona-ba asuntu fundamental sira, inklui Orsamentu Estadu. Ita boot sira nia knar la’ós de’it atu tau karimbu ba proposta sira ho Governu sein halo Analiza no konsidera proposta hirak ne’e ba interese povu nian ka lae.

Ami komprende katak ita-boot sira nia tempu ne’e limitadu, no apresia ba ita-boot sira nia atensaun. Ami be saran lia ne’e espera katak informasaun ida ne’e sei ajuda ukun na’in sira hodi halo desizaun sira ne’ebé matenek hodi benefisia povu Timor-Leste tomak no maximiza sustentabilidade Fundu Petrolíferu, no sei pronto atu fornese informasaun tan ka tuir audiénsia bainhira ita-boot sira husu.
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Atualiza: Parlamentu Nasional aprova proposta retifikasaun kedas, no iha loron 28 Jullu La'o Hamutuk hakerek submisaun ida tan ba Prezidente Republika ne’ebé husu nia atu veto.

LH to PN: Don't approve budget rectification!

Liga ba artigu ida ne'e iha Tetum

On the afternoon of 12 July, Timor-Leste's Parliament began discussing a Government proposal to add $391 million to the 2016 State Budget and withdraw more than triple the sustainable level from the Petroleum Fund this year. That night, they unanimously approved the budget revision in general. They will finish voting on each article before they go on recess this Friday. Although Parliament didn't ask for input, La'o Hamutuk urged urging them to reject the proposal, which will spend the money on physical infrastructure projects, including several with dubious benefits. The following is slightly edited, with links and graphics added:

Submission to Timor-Leste National Parliament
from La’o Hamutuk
on the Proposed Rectification of the 2016 State Budget
12 July 2016

In order to fund several large infrastructure projects, the Government of Timor-Leste has proposed to spend $391 million more this year, on top of the $1.562 billion already allocated in the 2016 State Budget. The resulting $1.953 billion budget will be the largest in the Nation’s history. La’o Hamutuk is extremely concerned that this proposed revision will squander Timor-Leste’s limited wealth, further undermining the sustainability of our Petroleum Fund by wasting more public money on projects with no clear benefit.

Megaprojects need to be analyzed and planned more seriously.

La’o Hamutuk has often written to your Excellencies about our concern that some of the large, expensive infrastructure projects being built by foreign companies at public expense – including Tasi Mane (Suai Supply Base, South Coast Highway and Betano Refinery), ZEESM, Dili Airport and Tibar port – will not provide sufficient benefits to current and future generations of Timorese people, which is the principal purpose of the Petroleum Fund as provided by Law.

We have urged that these projects be planned better, with cost-benefit-risk analyses to determine if the advantages outweigh the financial, social and environmental impacts. The lack of realistic planning has now become obvious to all – the Government is asking Parliament to double the amount you approved for the Infrastructure Fund only six months ago. At that time, the Ministries of Finance and Public Works already knew that they would need $131 million in 2016 to pay for the Tibar Port, but they failed to inform Parliament, causing you to enact an insufficient budget.

Today, they are making the opposite error. The contract for the Suai Supply Base was rejected by the Tribunal Rekursu and the company has pulled out of the project, so there is no way that a legitimate new tender can be held in time for construction to start this year. Yet the Government wants Parliament to allocate $127 million more for Tasi Mane during 2016. Are they playing you for fools?

Timor-Leste no longer even pretends to spend sustainably.

The proposed budget increase will be entirely funded by withdrawals from the Petroleum Fund. It asks to spend 9.2% of Timor-Leste’s entire petroleum wealth this year, more than three times the Estimated Sustainable Income.

Last month, the IMF published its latest Article IV Report on Timor-Leste, pointing out that:

“While prudent saving of its oil wealth in the Petroleum Fund has provided Timor-Leste with a financial cushion to help offset revenue losses related to the recent fall in global oil prices, fiscal trends under existing capital expenditure plans are unsustainable as the Petroleum Fund will be depleted in the long term at the current rate of withdrawals.”

The IMF report was published with consent from the RDTL Ministry of Finance. IMF and World Bank economists did not imagine that capital expenditure plans would become even more unsustainable a month or two after they wrote the report.

La’o Hamutuk has previously projected that Timor-Leste’s Petroleum Fund could be entirely spent within ten years. However, if the hasty over-spending proposed in this rectification is a precedent, the Fund could be used up even sooner.

While budget allocations for physical infrastructure have steadily increased, investment in human resources, basic services and the non-oil economy are still inadequate, and spending on health care, education and agriculture has decreased in the last two years. This budget revision will further increase spending on dubious physical infrastructure mega-projects. The graph at right shows that physical infrastructure will get much more money than everything else put together.

However, the Petroleum Fund is already greatly stressed, and its $16.591 billion balance at the end of May 2016 was $541 million lower than it was 12 months earlier. The information provided in Budget Book 1 about future petroleum revenues includes several errors and distortions. We would like to call Parliament’s attention to some important facts:

• Oil revenues continue to fall due to the shutdown of the Kitan field, declining Bayu-Undan production and continued low global oil prices. The year-old “prudent” price projection that the Ministry still uses was that Brent Crude prices in 2016 would average $64.70/barrel. So far this year, the actual Brent average has been $39.97, and the July 2016 U.S. Energy Information Administration projection is that Brent prices will average $43.73 during all of 2016. (A prudent price projection would be about $8 lower than the EIA “reference” price).
  
  
• However, as Bayu-Undan is more than 90% depleted, future oil prices will not make a large difference in Timor-Leste’s finances even if they go back up. During the first five months of 2016, the JPDA produced 5% fewer barrels each month than it did during 2015, and 33% fewer than in 2012. It will continue to decline as the field is nearly exhausted.
  
  
• ConocoPhillips and other companies will keep about $125 million of what they would have paid Timor-Leste this year to recover overzealous assessments of back taxes in 2012.
  
  
• Petroleum revenues deposited into the Petroleum Fund during the first quarter of 2016 totalled $125.3 million, and if they continue at this level Timor-Leste’s total oil and gas receipts this year will be $501 million. Yet the Budget continues to expect $719 million in revenues.
  
  
• The return on investing Timor-Leste’s Petroleum Fund during 2015 was less than zero, yet Budget Book 1 continues to use an optimistic, speculative prediction that they will earn 5.7% return every year. Global stock markets continue to be volatile.
  
  
• About $641 million of the Fund is invested in securities denominated in British Pounds, and the fall of the pound after the Brexit vote last month cost Timor-Leste $63 million due to currency exchange rates.
  
  
• The projected ESI figures in the Minister of Finance’s 23 June letter to the Prime Minister (page 63) are misleading, as they wrongly assume that all withdrawals from the Petroleum Fund after 2016 will be limited to ESI, which is not what the Government plans to do.

Conclusion

Therefore, in light of this information, La’o Hamutuk urges Parliament not to approve this budget rectification. The Government has promised to engage in a review of the five-year-old Strategic Development Plan, and this review should be undertaken before approving hasty, thoughtless spending of nearly four hundred million more dollars -- an amount equal to about $6 for every Timorese family every day, which more than 40% of our citizens have for their daily lives. The $400 million increase is more than Timor-Leste will spend this year on health, education, police, military, agriculture and social solidarity all added together.

Budget Book 1 justifies the mid-year spending increase because “given that next year is an election year, it is expected that there will be a moderate budget that would be unable to accommodate these expenditures.” This flies in the face of Timor-Leste’s experience – the 2012 State Budget was the largest in the nation’s history … until now.

There is no need to rush to enact this budget without public hearings or adequate analysis, consultation and debate. The Government will still be here when you come back from recess, the Infrastructure Fund will not be empty, and the appropriations and transfers authorized by the original 2016 budget will not have been used up.

Under the Constitution, each Member of Parliament is responsible to represent all Timorese citizens on fundamental issues, including the State Budget. Your role is not to rubber-stamp the Government’s proposals without analyzing them and considering whether or not they are in the public interest.

We understand that your time is limited, and appreciate your attention. We sincerely hope that this information will help policymakers make wise decisions which benefit all of Timor-Leste’s people and maximize the sustainability of our Petroleum Fund, and would be glad to provide further information or testimony if you wish.
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Update: Parliament unanimously approved the proposed rectification in less than one week, and on 28 July La'o Hamutuk wrote another submission urging the President of the Republic to veto it.