Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf

A FIERCE attack on the ‘secrecy and spin’ surrounding the controversial States Business Plan has been launched by a States Member who claims that Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf is trying to take over the running of the government.

Deputy Geoff Southern has accused Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf – his long-term political foe – of attempting a fundamental and anti-democratic shift in the balance of power.

He has attacked ministerial ‘spin and secrecy’ over the Business Plan cuts, saying that the proposed take-over of finance directors amount to a ‘bloodless coup’ within the States.

In an open letter published today in the JEP, Deputy Southern says that the debate on planned Business Plan cuts ‘plumbs new depths of incompetence from the Council of Ministers’.

Ministers have already been accused of ‘shroud-waving’ over cuts in next year’s Business Plan – which Education Minister James Reed says that he will fight, and which Health Minister Anne Pryke says that she will revise.