Finance secretary Cesar Purisima on Thursday said his department will look into allegedly anomalous deals the National Food Authority and the Department of Public Works and Highways entered into during the Arroyo administration, with specific focus on possible tax issues.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde expects a significant pickup in global growth next year, led by emerging countries such as China and India.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde predicted there will be a significant pick-up in growth in 2011. She spoke in an Bloomberg Television interview from Paris.

KUALA LUMPUR: Share prices on Bursa Malaysia closed higher on Wednesday, July 28, lifted by gains in finance-related stock such as CIMB Group, dealers said. At 5pm, the FBM KLCI rose 2.96 points or 0.22 per cent to close at its new high in the 2009-2010 rally at 1,355.19. The benchmark index opened 0.42 of a point higher at 1,352.65 in the morning and traded within a range of 5.51 points between …

The most ideal thing a state or government can do is to create projects that would benefit the taxpayers. But creating costly and unproductive government departments are a nightmare to watch. It has been reported that the American Census Bureau had spent at least $3 million for nothing. Yes, you heard me right. $3 million was spent to pay the employees despite the fact that they haven’t done any significant work yet.

It all started a month away from the scheduled 2010 nationwide census gathering of the United States of America. To be able to conduct a census faster and efficiently, you need to have a lot of manpower to cover more places at a faster rate. Training expenses including accommodation and travel expenses provided the bulk of the cost for this program. An audit report released such unpleasant findings and results.

First, the report indicated that $3 million were spent for the training of some 10,000 employees. It was indicated that they received at least $300 each. The problem is that much of the employees actually quitted or others were removed without even rendering the needed service. That was millions of taxpayer money going to waste.

Second, another batch of 5000 employees underwent for the same training with the same rate but only worked for a maximum of 1 day. Here we see the about $1.5 million heading again nowhere. Next is about 23 temporary employees were given the benefit of a car mileage plan receiving 55 cents every mile. The controversial point here is that most of them reported that the number of miles they were driving per hour exceeded the number of hours they actually worked. Here you can see such unlikable inconsistencies and rude work ethic.

And lastly, a very controversial and questionable situation is that 581 employees who went driving for personal reasons instead of doing work received full mileage refund. How lucky and privileged can these 581 employees can be. Do they even think that the money they are wasting is hard-earned money paid by American taxpayers?

With situations like this continuously occurring or happening, more and more of the taxpayer’s money will be wasted on things that are not even worth spending. The government should learn how to effectively deal and efficiently manage the funds gained from taxpayers. It is the responsibility of the government to make the most out of these funds and provide what taxpayers should be receiving. And that is to provide better quality service, promote welfare and development, upheld rights and implement only programs that will only serve the best interests of the taxpayers.