BY BEN BILUA
WESTERN Provincial Government (WPG) is being cautious with its budget as the National Government gets tight on its provincial assistance.
In an interview, Speaker of Western Province, Adrian Gina told this paper that Western Province is aware of the National Government Covid-19 Redirection Policy and is now taking measures to fill the gaps.
He said Western Provincial Executive have spent time last week and this week identifying the province’s priority areas and aligning them with the cost cutting measures of the national government covid-19 redirection policy.
“It’s been a very tiring week for Western Provincial Executive as some of the plans came short due to covid-19 direction policy of the National Government.
“We tried to align our budget with the national government’s shortfalls so that what we budgeted for will complement the national government,” Gina said.
“Western province has to go down to its level to see the national government budget cut and determine its own intervention to make sure its development aspirations and service delivery are not affected in the next financial year,” he added.
Gina said the provincial executive and the province’s planning division have already made amendments to the province’s budget so that both the provincial budget and national government allocation are on the same page.
Western Provincial Government (WPG) will kick off its Assembly meeting today at the Imagination Island Resort – an Island half a mile from Gizo town.
