Big ticket items in Budget were more miss than hit - Jamine

The Budget tabled on Wednesday had a number of misses, with one of the biggest being the failure to cut government's public servant remuneration, which was set to grow by 7% a year over the medium term, economist Dr Azar Jamine said on Friday. "It is earmarked to carry on growing as fast as it has in recent years and, instead, the reliance was on raising taxes in trying to close the gap in expenditure, and that is not sustainable to long-term growth," he pointed out during a business breakfast.