Finance Minister Yigal Hurwitz’s “economic cabinet” approved an IL 100 billion addition to the national budget for the current fiscal year yesterday. But Treasury officials insisted that the new sum merely covered an unpredicted increase in inflation and represented, in fact a four percent cutback in real terms. The budget for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 1980 stood originally at IL 324 billion.
Hurwitz said it. “would be a real achievement” if the government stuck by the limits of the present budget. He said he would “absolutely insist” that a reduction in the order of four percent is made in the new State budget for fiscal 1980-81 that is now being prepared.
Meanwhile, opposition Labor circles predicted today that the additional budget with its implied cutbacks in real spending would necessitate a 40 percent rise in the prices of fuel and other commodities before March 31.
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