The government committee was clear – if nothing was to be done, the government’s finances would be doomed in as little as seven years.
The Finance Secretary had some tough decisions to make. Raising more revenue for the government over the next few years is crucial.
He was also being targeted and mocked because his ministry’s predictions for economic performance and taxes raised have been consistently wrong every year since 2007.
This is common for government agencies in pretty much every country, but Hong Kong is possibly the worst – they continually underestimate the numbers.
The government will finish the fiscal year ending next month, for example, with a surplus of at least HK$60 billion (probably more, given how horrible they are at forecasting), which is six times more than the finance ministry projected.
A surplus! Who does that anymore??
Couldn’t they find something else to spend money on? Armored vehicles and combat gear for the police (they did face a massive uprising just a few months ago after all)? Welfare? Crony subsidies? Drones? New government committees and agencies? Surveillance?
This post was published at Sovereign Man on February 5, 2015.
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