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Wednesday, February 24, 1971
EXPENDITURE ESTIMATE FOR NEXT FINANCIAL YEAR
$2,936 Million, Or 18.7 Fer Cont Higher Than This Year
The total estimate of expenditure in the next financial year
beginning on April 1 is $2,936 million $463 million, or 18.7 per cent,
higher than the revised estimate for 1970/71.
Sir John Cowperthwaite, Financial Secretary, told the Legislative
Council today this was "an unusually large increase," particularly coming on
top of an increase of about $400 million in actual expenditure this year
compared with the last.
He said the increase reflected factors such as rising costs, both
of staff and of material things
samo economic developments that had caused "even sharper growth of revenue
in the recent past."
rising costs boing a consequence of the
Another, and probably more important, factor was the "maturing of
plans long in the pipeline,"
Ho had for years tried to explain that the Government's plans must
not be judged by one year's estimates of expendituro, but by the in the
short torm "largely irreversible plans of expansion in nearly all fields
of government activity."
P
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