Available information will be used to develop budget: Official

TREASURY Department secretary Dairi Vele says they will use the best knowledge and information available to develop the country’s next budget.
“How we were in the past and our immediate performance this year will lay the foundation for where we are looking at next year,” Vele said. He said that a country’s economic performance varied every fiscal year which was affected by factors such as market prices among others and this would also be considered in the budget process.
He said during a media workshop last Thursday that designing the country’s budget is not an “exact science” and the country’s revenue in determining what the budget will be like.
“Our revenue envelope will tell you where we have been in the last three years and reasons where the country will be like in the next three years.
However, what it will be like next year cannot be known. “When we speak about revenue, we are not big enough to decide what the market will be like.
“The prices are decided by the really big players overseas and they decide what the oil, coffee, cocoa and copra price is like and countries like us have to live with it.
“We may think that oil price will be at this level this year but if USA and China keep fighting and the middle-east breaks out, the price will go up and down and we have to live with it.
“The point is that we use the best knowledge and information available for next year in the budget.”