Dear Editor – As a lay person I could not get what Alfred Sasako was trying to say when he boastfully described a surplus in the government budget for the first quarter of this year in Star No. 5832.
He should not only show part of the picture but rather the whole picture. Let me explain what I mean by the whole picture.
The ‘economic victory’ should include all the revenues collected for the first 3 months of this year from all the government ministries.
He should use a graph to show this. If what he was trying to boast about is the more than $830 million collected by Customs and Inland Revenue for the first 3 months, I would say that this is well below the target for the ‘people’s budget’.
In order to achieve the ‘people’s budget’ of $4.18 billion, the DCCG has to collect not less than $1.05 billion a quarter; that is $1,050,000,000.00.
This is about $350,000,000.00 a month.
In summary, if that $830 plus million was for the first month of this year, I would agree that the government has made a surplus.
Anyway, if I am talking non-sense it was the news release about the ‘economic victory’ that made me confused because I was not able to see the whole picture.
I only request that Alfred Sasako put another press release to say that the government collected more than $1.05 billion up to the end of April 2015.
Alfred Maesulia
Honiara
