Bula
Many things stood out yesterday morning when Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad announced the 2023-2024 National Budget in Suva.
After many budget sessions that were delivered late on a Friday night, this year’s budget address got underway on time yesterday!
While delivering his address in Parliament, Professor Prasad said the People’s Coalition Government was here to serve the people, not rule over them. He said Government wanted to drop the present 90 per cent debt to GDP ratio to 79 per cent by July next year and intended to reduce that further down to under 60 per cent by 2030.
That would then open up more space for actual progressive spending.
There were many standout features of the budget that stood out.
More than 50,000 Tertiary Education Loans Scheme recipients are rejoicing after Government wrote off the $650 million debt incurred by the program.
On the much discussed Value Added Tax, we will have a two-tier VAT rate system effective from the next financial year (August 1).
This, we are told, is expected to generate additional net VAT collections estimated at about $446 million.
The Government has kept zero VAT on 21 items with prescribed medicines added to the list to make it 22 items.
Responding to strong feedback about lowering food prices, there has been a reduction in fiscal duty from 32 per cent to 15 per cent on certain food products to assist households.
To provide “ordinary households” a range of choices, there is also reduced import excise on chicken portions such as wings, drumstick, legs, feet, thighs, etc from 15 per cent to 0 per cent.
There will be interest on allocations for education, and health for instance, for the civil service and for our pensioners and senior citizens.
There can be no doubts about the importance of the national budget for our economic and social development.
From the outset, the budget appears to have sufficient giveaways which sceptics will suggest have been packaged beautifully and delivered with a lot of empathy.
There are a lot of takeaways for people. However, there are also questions that will need to be asked as we draw connections to challenges we face as a nation. It is in the best interest of all that any nagging questions are put to rest! And that is why we look forward to the budget debate!
We have a comprehensive coverage of the National Budget in The Fiji Times for Saturday, July 1.
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