THE Leader of Opposition Jeremiah Manele has questioned the Government as to why the implementation of the ‘People’s Budget’ has been very slow.
With only five months left before the end of the 2015 financial year, MrManele said people are waiting for the much needed services to be delivered.
“After all it is called the People’s Budget and the Government needs to make it known to the people why the budget delivery has been so slow,” Mr Manele said.
He cautioned the Government that they could end up not achieving much because of trying to do too much in a given time frame.
The Leader of Opposition reiterated a statement he made during his Budget Speech in April this year that the most serious challenge to the execution of the 2015 budget is time.
“As I have mentioned in Parliament, and is likely to be the case right now that the time frame for implementation of the budget is simply too short. Obviously, we are yet to start expending the budget and with only five months left to execute the budget, this is simply inadequate,” he said.
In addition, Mr Manele said the Government is currently faced with another dilemma and that is some of the Government ministries do not have the capacity to effectively implement the 2015 budget within the 5 months’ time frame left for this year.
“Their recurrent budgets are not linked or are simply inadequate in terms of their manpower establishment to support the implementation of the programmes or projects in their development budgets or to enhance their ability to collect additional revenue,” he said.
As such, the Leader of Opposition has called on the Government to tell this nation how and when the Government will roll out their work programs and start expending the budget.
“Our people are waiting. The budget is in their name so let us ensure that much needed services are delivered to them, especially the majority of our people in the rural areas. The Government has a huge task ahead and so many promises to fulfill and it must not fail its people.”
Meanwhile, the Leader of Opposition has also voiced serious concerns over the uncontrolled and frequent oversea trips by Ministers and officials.
He questioned the relevance of the trips, calling on the Government to explain how these trips will benefit the people of this country especially when people are still waiting for the much needed services to be delivered to them.
“How can the Government explain the uncontrolled trips and how does it relate to the implementation of a budget that is yet to be implemented,” he said.
