Cooks' civil service needs

to be Men reduced

THE Asian Development

Bank says that the official economic outlook for the Cook Islands is gloomy.

In its Asian Development Outlook 1999, the Bank said that forecasts indicated that GDP would fall by one per cent this year before gradually recovering to reach growth of three per cent per year by 2003.

But the Bank said that to achieve the growth, it was assumed that there would be sustained growth in the tourism, agriculture, and marine resources sectors.

The ADB said that the principal policy issue for the Cook Islands was the comple tion of its Economic Reform Programme.

But it said that there was cause for concern about the effectiveness and durability of

some of the changes. “Despite attempts to balance the operating budget in 1997 and 1998, deficits were recorded, and the gov ernment was unable to service fully an external debt of NZ5143.9 million, equiva lent to nearly the whole of GDP,” it said.

The ADB said that the country’s 1999 budget was not in compliance with the

requirement that the operating budget be

balanced, and relied on asset sales to fund expenditure.

“One major asset sale has not been fully transparent, and the privatisation of the government-owned telecommunications monopoly paid insufficient attention to reg ulatory arrangements,” it said.

The bank said that effective efforts to realise fiscal surpluses were needed and would have to include a planned comple tion of public service reform.

Even though, between 1996 and 1998, the number of civil servants was reduced from about 3,350 to 1,340, the ADB says it is still far too high for such a small popula tion. It added that the failure to reduce the size and cost of a Parliament of 25 mem bers and concerns about the commitment to improved governance needed to be addressed. ■