IOD chairman Gary Drinkwater

INDUSTRY leaders will not back tax rises until the States show that they have done all they can to work with Guernsey to save money.

And the Jersey branch of the Institute of Directors has criticised an assistant minister for not responding with enthusiasm to an initiative to establish an inter-island group to work out where savings can be made.

IoD chairman Gary Drinkwater said that they saw no merit in supporting tax increases until more work had been done to cut the costs of the public sector by co-operating with Guernsey. He said that industry leaders had become ‘disappointed with the slow progress’.

Mr Drinkwater said that Guernsey’s Minister for Commerce and Employment, Carla McNulty-Bauer, had formed a working group in an attempt to work with the States of Jersey. But he said that Jersey’s Assistant Economic Development Minister, Paul Routier, had not yet agreed that such a group was necessary.