SI Govt Continues To Implement Economic Reforms

SI Govt Continues To Implement Strong Economic Reforms

The Minister of Finance and Treasury Gordon Darcy Lilo says the government will continue to support strong Economic Reforms to sustain the current economic growth of 6 percent.

Speaking at the launching of the 2008 Budget Preparation Process on Thursday, Mr Lilo said the general state of the country’s economy continue to show signs of improvement and the government had envisaged positive growth to continue in 2008.

Mr Lilo said the preparation of the 2008 budget will be made under different circumstances which will focus more on implementing government policies.

“The 2008 budget will therefore be a harder budget,” he said. “Economic reforms are needed and the government has not backed away”.

Mr Lilo said under the present economic direction taken by the government, the overall debt stock has continued to decline.

“Domestic and external debts have been regularized and loan repayments are being made in a timely fashion,” he said.

The Minister added that economic and political stability has been maintained and the government investment reforms and policy statements continue to attract significantly increased investor interest.

The 2008 budget will include:
· The involvement of the Expenditure Review Sub-committee of Cabinet in the 2008 Budget preparation process to examine summary new expenditure proposals and ensure consistency with the government’s policy framework.

· Reduction in the number of Budget appropriation lines

· Identification of Ministry spending in the provinces

· Efforts to get ministries to consider the ongoing costs of projects, especially in new proposals

· Special focus on less productive expenditures on consumables and more attention to the ongoing costs of projects

· Publication of the Recurrent and Development Estimates into a single document

· Provision of the 2008 Budget to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in time to enable it to provide a full report to parliament.

ENDS

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