Economy spokesman Johnny Andrews says Arlene Foster’s final hurrah as Finance Minister ignores the needs for the economy with major cuts to new department of the economy coming. Why is department of economy not protected?
‘There is no clear planning for reduction in corporation tax in 2018, the major plank in the Fresh Start agreement.’ says Andrews. ’There is no strategy for jobs and youth unemployment as NI economy lags in competitiveness tables and we see major losses of manufacturing jobs in recent months and simply atrocious figures on manufacturing output set to get worse as the jobs are actually lost.’
‘Where is the concentration on STEM graduates so badly needed in industry as we see further cuts to higher education?’
This is on the back of major windfall for the executive with the fall in the oil price of 50% in the last year ,the savings on need for tax credit relief and the savings now coming through on the money saved for public sector the early exit scheme.
On infrastructure this is another DUP /Sinn Fein carve up concentrating on their own vanity projects at the expense of essential projects like Sydenham by pass and Dee St link which was approved in 2009.