The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

DAYS after the government’s mid-year fiscal performance was tabled in the House of Assembly, The Tribune has still not received a response from officials on why the budget for the Office of the Prime Minister quadrupled.

Details of the government’s mid-year fiscal performance revealed the $62.532m increase. The increase came under the heading “grants, fixed charges and special transactions”.

Despite seeking answers, The Tribune has not received a response from the Office of the Prime Minister over the recurrent spending increase.

This comes a week after Prime Minister Perry Christie, during his parliamentary communication on Value-Added Tax, emphasised the importance of financial transparency.

The budget for the Office of the Prime Minister, approved as $17.069m last year, expanded to $79.947m.

In an interview with The Tribune last week, Free National Movement (FNM) Deputy Leader Peter Turnquest said this increase was “absolutely crazy”.

Last June, the Office of the Prime Minister’s budget increased from $9.8m in 2014-2015 to $17,069,450 in 2016-2017.

That increase was attributable to funding increases for several high-profile projects that came under the Office of the Prime Minister.

This included the National Health Insurance Secretariat (NHIS), which received $2.5m in last June’s budget.

The mid-year budget performance documents tabled in Parliament last week were not as comprehensive as yearly budgets typically are, however, making it impossible to determine what the huge increases in the Office of the Prime Minister’s budget were for.