Budget pending

Nunavut budget focus on capital funding

Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Feb 12/01) - Look for money to help build Nunavut when the territorial budget is unveiled later this month.

Finance Minister Kelvin Ng will table the budget in the Legislative Assembly. Legislators will meet Feb. 21 at 1:30 p.m., but a date for Ng's budget speech has not been announced.

Kelvin Ng

The finance minister was reluctant to give out any details, but he did say last week that the government would dig into their coffers to spend more money on capital projects during the upcoming fiscal year.

"We plan on using some of the accumulated surplus to try and meet some basic needs," said Ng.

"We want to focus on capital projects, particularly on the education side of things," he said.

Ng also said the government had learned in the last two years how tough it was to operate when faced with financial constraints.

"We know there's a lot of needs. It's a matter of how you go about it given the limited financial resources," said Ng.

"Now that we've governed, we know how difficult it is."

Nunavut receives the bulk of its revenue -- $589 million last fiscal year -- from the federal government in the form of transfer payments.