Gov’t Taking Prudent Fiscal Decisions – Prime Minister Holness

The Government is diligently taking prudent fiscal decisions to achieve long-term strategic and material economic benefits and well-being, says Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness.

“We are very cautious about how we spend and what we spend on. Even [in] our capital Budget, we go through a very rigorous process of public investment [and] evaluation, just to make sure that we’re not wasting our funds on projects that don’t have a strategic outcome for the economy,” the Prime Minister said.

He was addressing a recent Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing ceremony between the Victoria Mutual (VM) Group, VM Foundation and the National Land Agency (NLA), at Jamaica House.

While noting that Jamaica’s economic programme is “almost back at 2019 levels”, Prime Minister Holness emphasised that the country is “not out of the woods yet”.

“Jamaica has not had, for a very long time, a long runway of sustained economic progress. We’re just about getting there, where we can see our engine revving and we have a long runway to take off. We don’t want to disrupt that, and we must protect our economic programme,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Mr. Holness has acknowledged a heightening of investor and consumer confidence, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So, investors and consumers alike have a more optimistic and stable view of the future. That will be more concretised when the Budget is read, so people will have an even better understanding of what the future is,” he said.

The Government has proposed to spend $1 trillion for the 2023/24 fiscal year, the Estimates of Expenditure for which were tabled in the House of Representatives on February 14.

Details of the 2023/24 allocation will be unveiled during the opening Budget Debate presentation by the Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr. the Hon. Nigel Clarke, on March 7.