Govt says budget cleared before tabled

By HELEN TARAWA
THE Government has assured the people that the legality of the 2019 Supplementary Budget was cleared before it was tabled by Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey on Friday.
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Justice and Attorney-General Davis Steven told Parliament that the legality was cleared using the normal processes established by law.
He said State Solicitor Daniel Rolapagarea had cleared it after considering all the legal requirements and necessary procedures that pertain to passing an amendment to an appropriation bill.
He said the figures did not have to be based on the Mid-Year Economic Fiscal Outlook report as alluded to by the Opposition. “The report is not in question. The report has been published. It is not correct and indeed misleading to suggest that it was not published or even rejected,” Steven said.
“The fact of the matter is that if we look carefully at the submission, the report was considered as a prudent treasurer would do.
“In fact it’s not unusual for a treasurer to rally behind a report like that.
“The report has been presented and it has been considered and that is the normal thing to do,” he said.
Steven said the law stated that the report should be presented and a due diligence team tested the accuracy and found that it was not reliable.
“And on top of that, an international bench marking was allowed to occur which is the right thing to do by the International Monitory Fund,” he said.
He said the National Statistics Office figures used to frame the budget “go back to 2016”.
Steven said the Government will continue the district and provincial services improvement programmes (DSIP and PSIP) under a robust legislative plan.
He said it would be done through an amendment of the Provincial and Local Level Government Act to be tabled in Parliament later.
“The District Development Act (DDA) is being challenged in the Supreme Court because our governors are not happy and satisfied with the way we are devolving powers and decentralising responsibilities and financing capacity of our local level governments,” Steven said.
“We decry the cuts that we are making in respect to DSIP and PSIP. That’s a necessary cut. We are cutting elsewhere, massive cuts.
“But with DSIP and PSIP, we are more conservative and careful,” Steven said.
“The intention is to keep that funding envelop for the majority of our people in districts and provinces.”
He said much had been said about PSIP and DSIP.
“We on this side of the House know the benefits of SIP since it was introduced. We know how districts and rural areas have benefited from funding going directly to where the people are. It is for that reason that we have been careful in the reduction of that area. Our intention is to continue to maintain that policy but we are going do it better.”