Budget is a failure: Kumar

Opposition Member of Parliament Premila Kumar has criticised the 2024-2025 National Budget.

The former Minister for Education claimed the Coalition Government’s budget announced on Friday failed to address the high cost of living for ordinary Fijians because the Value Added Tax (VAT) remained.

Ms Kumar said Government failed to address the high cost of living that plagued many ordinary Fijians.

Last August, Government increased VAT from nine per cent to 15.

There were collective calls for the reduction of VAT from members of the public Government consultations around the country for the formulation of the budget.

Many expected a decrease in VAT, says Ms Kumar.

“Unfortunately the cost of living has not been addressed,” she said.

“The VAT increase still remains, the corporate tax still remains, this simply means these will be passed on to the public.

“Those who were thinking that there will be some relief in this budget for them, it is not there. That’s the sad part.”

The budget is projecting total expenditures of $4.552 billion and total income of $3.917 billion.

During the budget delivery, Finance Minister Biman Prasad said the fiscal imbalance amounted to $635.5m, or 4.5 per cent of GDP.

By the end of next July, the debt to GDP ratio of the nation is expected to drop even further to 77.8 per cent of GDP, with the goal of achieving even lower levels by the year 2040, to around 60 per cent of GDP.

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