“Yesterday, I released the fact that PNG’s budget deficit had climbed to K4,636 million – the legacy of the former Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill. Budget deficits add to public debt. This means the O’Neill regime’s policies were going to add another K4,636 million to public debt in 2019. PNG’s public debt was therefore going to increase to an extraordinary K33,045 million. With a population of 9 million people, this means that the O’Neill years were going to leave every single person in PNG with a public debt burden of K3,672. If there are six people in your household, this means that the O’Neill regime debt level for your household is K22,028. This is money that your family household and your children will eventually have to pay in tax money or other ways of raising money from the land and beauty that belongs to the people of PNG. “Yesterday was one month since I humbly accepted Prime Minister Marape’s commissioning as Minister for Treasury. It has been an exhausting month of working through weekends and late nights to establish the true state of the nation’s books. My first task, as stated from day one, was to establish the facts, and once we had the facts, then we can plan the way forward to implement the Marape-Steven government’s vision. People’s National Congress Party leader and former PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has hit back at the Treasurer’s stated plans to borrow from the ADB and Australia to fund the Budget. He said yesterday that this went against all economic common sense. “It is a very dangerous plan that will just be digging our economy into a hole,” Mr O’Neill said. “It is not needed and will only lead to a blowout in the debt limit. Papua New Guiena Opposition leader Belden Namah has called on the government of Prime Minister James Marape to stop the blame game on the current state of the economy. Mr Namah said Mr Marape, Patrick Pruaitch and Charles Abel were senior economic ministers in the O’Neill government for over 7 years. “I just want to remind our citizens that this is the same person who was with Peter O’Neill seven years back, he was one of the more senior economic ministers, he held the Ministry for Finance for 7 consecutive years, I don’t know who is he blaming,” he said. “He should be one of the people held responsible for the current state of our economy, he is one of the senior economic ministers, lest we forget, so who are we blaming?” Mr Namah said the Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey said the economy was badly managed so the question is who badly managed the economy. Papua New Guinea Minister for Public Enterprises and State Investments Sasindran Muthuvel last week continued discussions with the visiting Asian Development Bank (ADB) delegation in Port Moresby to support PNG State-owned entities (SOE) reform program through a policy-based racility Loans. The delegation was led by the Pacific department’s director general Carmela Locsin and her colleagues from ADB South Pacific liaison and co-ordination office. These discussions follow on from Mr Muthuvel’s attendance at the OECD 12th meeting of the Asia network on corporate governance of SOEs held in Manila earlier this month. While he visited the ADB headquarters he also met with Locsin on PNG’s SOE reform agenda. “I was pleased to meet recently with Mr Paias Wingti MP, the Governor for Western Highlands Province to accept the province’s 2019 Revised budget.The Treasurer thanked the Governor and his administration for finalising the budget. The budget is essential for setting out the province’s development priorities for the rest of the year” stated the Minister for Treasury, Mr Ian Ling-Stuckey. “Unfortunately for the people of PNG, the economic mismanagement of the O’Neill regime has crippled our nation’s cash flows. As a result of the former Prime Minister’s mismanagement, I recognise that the Governor has had to cancel or delay vitally important development projects across Western Highlands Province. I know other Governors are facing the same problem. |
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