The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Deputy Prime Minister yesterday said he was "confident" that the Government will be able to slash recurrent spending by 10 per cent, and suggested even more savings could be realised through ongoing expenditure reviews.

K Peter Turnquest, who is also minister of finance, said "across the board" cuts were necessary to curtail government expenditure. The measures unveiled on Wednesday night by Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis also included no new public sector hirings and a reduction in government vehicles.

Mr Turnquest told Tribune Business: "We are doing an inventory audit of all the vehicles in the system, who they are assigned to, and doing an assessment of whether those cars are, in the first instance; properly allocated. Secondly, that they are needed to be driven overnight or they can be parked."

Mr Turnquest said the Minnis administration was looking to reduce government's costs back to a more "normal level" and "rationalise" spending on government programmes.

"We want to bring rationalisation to the programmes that we have. We cannot have the elevated level of programmes that we have today and achieve our goals of bringing down the deficit," he added

Mr Turnquest said it was not the Government's intention to inflict pain on anyone, but added: "We can't expect to continue business as usual and expect different results."