The Park Finance Office will present its 2017 budget in August, it was announced this morning.[pullquote]Now she has to show us what she’s got in terms of the future of The Park and understanding the situation we’ve found ourselves in.”—Xavier Dingo, chief financial analyst, A. Corn and Partners.[/pullquote]
At a short press conference held outside her office, PFO head Valentina Abeja confirmed she would present her second—and possibly last—budget at 11:00 on August 17.
The PFO head, who is now in the last year of her two-year mandate, has garnered much less attention—and controversy–than the previous head, Milton Struts. Still, many believe that this budget is a crucial one for her, if she wishes to remain in the position.
While Abeja has been more popular than Struts, who was criticized and ultimately ousted for taking food from Humans and renting out Park farmland to them, many considered her first budget to be too conservative and less forward-looking than they’d expected.
“She got a pass on the last budget, because it was better thought-out and we’d been without a budget for over a year. She was also better behaved than Struts was at the end, and that counted for a lot. But now she has to show us what she’s got in terms of the future of The Park and understanding the situation we’ve found ourselves in,” says Xavier Dingo, chief financial analyst at A. Corn and Partners.
Others agree.
“I think her honeymoon is all but over,” said one analyst who wished to remain anonymous.
Dingo, who knew Abeja from her days as an analyst at The Park’s All Species Credit and Commercial Bank (ASCCB), says she’s “highly qualified, competent, and conscientious.”
But, he says, she has one glaring weakness: “She’s is short on the ability to delegate.”
