Mar 03, 2017 Source

“It means that you have to reuse envelopes…” – Minister Harmon
The Government has no time for wastage this year. In fact, to ensure that there is efficiency in the spending of taxpayers’ monies and the use of state resources, the administration is expected to issue a circular with measures to its respective agencies and ministries to guide them in this regard.
This is according to Minister of State Joseph Harmon. He made this announcement during a post-cabinet press briefing held yesterday at the Ministry of the Presidency.There, the Minister said that the agencies will just have to be more careful with their spending so as to ensure that their allocated sums last until the next budget.
The Cabinet Secretary said, “You have to be a little bit more careful in how you are spending money to make sure that it lasts. It means that you have to reuse envelopes. There are several measures which we will circulate to government agencies on how they can cut back on expenses, like when you leave a room turn off the AC, don’t leave it running, and don’t leave the lights on.”
He said that these are just some of the practical measures that will be used to achieve the kind of austerity that is needed.“This is to ensure you don’t have to keep going back and requesting monies, and it means you have to be more sensible,” Harmon added.
With government facing an economic crunch, Harmon said that various measures will also be put in place to revitalize the economy. In this regard, he said that there will be the injection of spending into the housing sector.Harmon said that it is Government’s expenditure which will be “basically used to kick-start the economy.”The politician reminded of Government’s admission last year that there was not enough implementation of its Public Sector Infrastructure Programme. He said that this year the contracts are starting to “reel off” on time.
“As you can see we have better organization now and therefore all of the works and contracts which are in this budget, we are going to use that to ensure that the economy is basically better positioned,” the Minister asserted.
The Cabinet Secretary said that at the same time, government will continue to encourage private investment and private sector involvement in the economy.He added in this regard that the administration is going to engage the private sector in a more aggressive way so that the synergy between the two can be used to take the country further.