Row over budget

Posted on The National

DEBATE on the 2019 Supplementary Budget has started even before is it tabled by Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey in Parliament, with Opposition MPs calling the figures “misleading”.
Prime Minister James Marape is confident Ling-Stuckey will provide the correct “economic numbers” for the 2019 Supplementary Budget and the 2020 Budget, based on areas the Government team has been working on with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Treasury, the World Bank and others.
“What the Treasurer is doing is to fully ascertain our present economic conditions for us to offer solutions to take our country out of the present (economic) conditions,” Marape said.
“When I was finance minister, I was part of the government that deliberately entered into debt financing so we could do economic projects.
“But along the way, the areas of investments influenced by the then prime minister (Peter O’Neill) differed against some of our opinions.
“And these investments now add up to our present debts.
“Whether it is at K27 billion or above K30 billion, the fact is that it is still very high and possibly above requirements of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.”
Marape said his Government wants to establish where the true economic position of the country was and put forward policies and programmes in 2019 and 2020 “that should take us out of this mess”.
Opposition Leader Belden Namah and Shadow Treasurer Joseph Lelang refuted, saying the figures provided by Ling-Stuckey were “influenced by foreign due diligence group” and therefore unrealistic.
They allege that it “is a dangerous trend and a threat to national sovereignty” if “foreigners” are allowed to influence the 2019 Supplementary Budget and the 2020 National Budget.
Lelang doubted that the Budget, as claimed by Ling-Stuckey, was being assessed and verified by the IMF.
He said the IMF only provided surveillance and based their report on figures provided by the due diligence team.
Lelang cautioned Ling-Stuckey “not to mislead the nation” because the purpose of the IMF’s mission to PNG is to do surveillance of its policy and economy”.
He said the IMF reported a K2.7 billion blow out which was based on the figures provided to them by the Treasurer and his team.
Meanwhile, Marape said one of the reasons he had resigned from the O’Neill-led Cabinet was because his “protests” against budget policies, expenditure priorities were not acknowledged.
“The latest was my protest last November when I had no knowledge of budget frameworks, yet I was forced to support that budget,” he said.
But he said now was not the time to continue the “blame game” but to accept the state of the national economy and work to “rescue” it.
“Our Government will initiate immediate cost cutting on projects and expenditures of no significance to the economy, invest in economic stimulant projects, and source lower cost loans in the immediate to refinance our debts as well as provide budget support,” he said.

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