Chaudary Says The Budget Announcement Was A Mock Exercise

Hehehehe!

Just days after he announced the 2007 national budget, the interim Finance Minister, Mahendra Chaudary called a press conference and revealed that the budget announcement last Friday was a mock exercise.

“Well we are using military strategy and we created all the hype and announced something which sounded like the 2007 budget, looked like the 2007 budget but in realty it was just a mock exercise. We just wanted to gauge what the response from public and other sectors of the economy would be. Hehehehe!” Mr. Chaudary revealed with a smirk on his face.

The announcement left reporters at the scene with utter disbelief on their face and when faced with questions from reporters, Mr. Chaudary fired back with his set of questions.

“Tell me, did we announce the budget in parliament and got approval from representatives of people, or did we announce it in parliament at all? No we announced it at Holiday Inn and it's where people go to stay and have their lunches, not to announce budgets. And tell me this, do we really have to announce the budget. We are not accountable to anyone so all we will do is implement it.”

But Mr. Chaudary provided some relief when he told reporters at the conclusion of the press conference that the real budget has been drawn up and passed on to big businesses and other extremely concerned parties.

However the president of Fiji Retailers Association, Mr. Himmat Lodhia who had a lengthy interview on the budget published in one of the dailies today was lost for word when told by reporters about Mr. Chaudary's announcement. In response, Mr. Himmat Lodhia just said, “Oh!”

Meanwhile, the news of the mock budget exercise continued to create disappointment within political fraternity with the deposed Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase taking a swipe at the interim Government by saying that he spent a lot of time and had done intense brainstorming to make a negative comment on the budget and it was all a waste of his effort.

”But I want to say to this interim regime is that I am full of negative energy and I can assure them that no matter how good the actual budget will be, they should expect nothing but criticism from me,” Mr. Qarase added.

In other news, the RFMF has stated that they do not condone torture but just turn a blind eye towards it.