Balanced budget: Governor

National

EAST New Britain Governor Nakikus Konga says the 2020 provincial budget is a balanced budget.
He said the budget emphasised on living within the means but also serving people.
Konga made this remarks when presenting the budget to his provincial executive council (PEC) recently.
Konga said the 2020 budget framework was geared towards revitalising and consolidating the service delivery model.
“The K255 million budgets is based on the nine key areas of the strategic result areas or SRAs which includes: good governance and management, primary healthcare, economic development, education, social development, infrastructure development, land mobilisation, HIV/AIDS, and disaster response,” Konga said.
Konga said infrastructure development had the biggest cut with K96 million, followed by education with K89 million, governance and management with K47 million, economic development with K16 million, land mobilisation with K3 million, social development with K1 million, and disaster response with K1 million.
Health received the lowest allocation with K600,000.
Konga said the estimated provincial internal revenue focus for 2020 was predicted to be K71 million comprising goods and services tax (GST), licencing fees, commercial earnings, and other receipts.
He said despite of the current fiscal challenges, there was a need to boost the provincial internal revenue as part of the PEC-approved provincial revenue enhancement policy.
Konga said his government had identified revenue enhancing activities to be implemented immediately by 2020.