100-day plan will not fail: Abel

National

Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel says Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and the Cabinet fully endorsed the 100-day economic recovery plan and that it will not be a failure.
In in response to Opposition Leader Patrick Pruaitch’s comments about the 100-day plan, Abel said the government was fully supportive of it.
Pruaitch said the 100-day economic recovery plan would fail through lack of support from O’Neill.
He said O’Neill had made a mockery of the first important rule: “Small, efficient government.”
Almost at the same time this goal was proposed, O’Neill announced that his 33-man Cabinet would be assisted by nine vice-ministers, each of whom would be given some special responsibilities.
“For Abel’s first rule, ‘small, efficient government’, one can already insert, “bigger, less efficient government,” Pruaitch said.
He said Abel had not spelt out a single measure that would help downsize government so “we can be sure the nine vice-ministers would do their bit to increase the number of
allied political support staff and bureaucrats”.
Pruaitch said the outcome of policies and plans that were not clearly thought through would mean “the economic mismanagement of the last five years will continue in coming years because of incompetent leadership
and public borrowing that is out of control”.
He said there were some small signs that Abel may have understood the extent of
the mismanagement that had occurred.
“There is nothing in the 100-Day plan to suggest any attempt to reduce total public-sector costs; the only focus is on increasing of revenues which tends to be a longer- term goal,” he said.
The plan to squeeze government agencies and state-owned corporations for greater funds will not work, Pruaitch said.