Vele says focus of Budget to complete past initiatives

THE 2018 national Budget focuses on completing past initiatives by the government as opposed to funding new policy directions, Department of Treasury Secretary Dairi Vele says.
Vele, speaking during the launching of the World Bank report PNG
Economic Update, said the “excess culture” would be cut back. “We have been trying to cut back,” he said.
“Last year’s Budget and moving into this year’s Budget is the first time we are starting to feel the uptake where people do understand that you do need to focus on core business.
“There is a lot of value to be gained in turning up and doing what we are supposed to do.
“Now we are trying to say what are the things we started a while ago and we did not even finish.
“Why don’t we focus on finishing those things?
“That’s allowing us to identify some of the areas in which to pull back our expenditure. The issue there is that it takes time.
“Some of the issues that we are going through now are structural and I think sometimes we forget that.
“So what we have been doing over the last five years is trying to work through what is structural and what are the things that we are forcing on ourselves.
“Some of things that we are forcing on ourselves is really the culture of excess where you have a lot of money around and don’t worry about 10t or 5t that drops out of your pocket.”