“There should have been an increase in budget allocations” : Terry Coe

Opposition MP Terry Coe says there should have been an increase in budget allocations for key departments, pension and public servants. Honorable Terry Coe was not pleased about the National budget and Public Accounts Committee report which was tabled in the Fono on Wednesday July 31st. “To me the education, health need increases but also the social welfare, we should had had the people have an increase in the pension amount to $500 a fortnight and also the cost of living for the public servants. There’s nothing there. It’s no use saying we’re going to put it in and when are we going to get it? Prior to the elections? So the public servants need it now because the cost of living is high at the moment and its increasing all the time.” said Coe The Appropriations Bill for 2019/2020 has been passed after the third and final reading by the Fono Ekepule yesterday. According to the Treasury the actual numbers have been updated however there have been no changes to the figures. According to the 2019-2020 budget estimates, the financial year has a total recurrent expenditure of $28,173,000 and recurrent revenue of $28,735,000.