By PATRICK SAKAL
The government will be strictly handing down its 2021 national budget focusing on pay cuts for public servants in this week’s budget sitting.
According to Treasury secretary, Dairi Vele, this action will be strictly on cutting wages and salaries for multiple ghost public servants working in the country but will not affect genuine workers’ salary.
Vele said the personal emolument or public servants salaries will be strictly cut in the national budget to minimize the unnecessary spending in this sector to save cost for the priority areas in health and education.
He revealed this last Friday during an annual media briefing as a lead up to the tabling of the 2021 National Budget in Parliament this week.
He highlighted there are more than two public servants being paid for a single position in many government departments and provincial administrations in the provinces.
“We will do away with these irregularities by ensuring no budget is allocated for such practices in the provinces and departments next year,” Vele said. He said over the years, there were even more than three people being paid for one position which creates more holes to sink much of government budgets into public servants wages and less funds goes to priority services areas.
Meanwhile, Secretary Vele said major revenue areas of personal income taxes, the company tax and the Goods and Services Tax has shown little growth over the last five years.
He said the current strategy to support the 2021 national budget is based on total revenue increasing from K13 billion in 2019 to reach K14 billion in 2020 and K18.8 billion by 2021.
“This is to be done through enforcing greater compliances and our aim is not to increase taxes but to level the playing field and make sure everyone pays their legal obligations.”