Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Fiji economist calls for more documentation to allow scrutiny of interim regime’s latest Budget

Posted at 03:23 on 28 November, 2012 UTC

A Fiji economist, Waden Narsey, says the budget announced last week has general appeal.

But he is unsure about the analysis to justify spending.

He says 200 million US dollars has been allocated to roads and while rural communities will be happy, he questions the need for a four lane highway between Nadi and the nearby resort area of Denarau.

He says the thrust of the budget is to gain popularity with the voters.

“The real question is whether the economy will be able to sustain it, especially when all the burden for paying for the current deficit is passed on to not to a reduction of recurrent expenditure in non-essential items such as military expenditure, but simply to the future generations.”

Waden Narsey would like more documentation to be publicly available so that decision making and spending could be scrutinised.