By Gary Hatigeva
CHAIRMAN of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and Member of Parliament for East Honiara, Douglas Ete has lashed out at government over the cuts in budget allocations to Ministries.
Ete said government made cuts in budget allocations and expect so much on Ministries to deliver.
The PAC Chair raised this in dismay after hearing complaints from a lot of Ministries over the cuts in their budget submissions for the 2019 Appropriation Bill 2018.
The PAC Chair questioned how Ministries will be able to deliver when their submission based on full scale estimates are continuously cut. Some certain programs are losing out completely on allocations.
Ete said he believes this current government has been playing a doubled faced character that is renowned for ‘saying one thing and doing the opposite’.
A lot of Ministry Heads have been questioned at the ‘hearing’ as to why certain aspects of their programs were not complete. Concerns were of weak and slow progression, but most particularly, the vital Ministries, are saying this is a matter of budgetary allocation.
It is also said that a lot of policy platforms and frameworks have been launched, many of which come as a matter of outside interest, yet very little or no allocations are made for their implementations through respective Ministries.
While agreeing to the slash made, he pointed out that not all Ministries should be given such status as some Ministries have very important programs to carry out.
“For the sake of the people, these programs are also part of priority implementing parties to the government’s policy intents”, Ete said.
