Transcript
According to Charles Abel, PNG's GDP growth rate is expected to reach 4 percent in 2019, while between 2019 and 2023 the economy is expected to grow by an annual compound rate of 5 percent.
Outwardly optimistic, the Treasurer billed his budget as aiming at building a resilient economy that can withstand volatility.
"We keep our eyes always on that broader based economy, which is what this budget is all about, and creating those longer term quality jobs, building a middle class. You can see how employment is trending. It's not growing as fast as we would like, but the trend is positive. I think it's important the government keeps a very strong focus on employment generation."
The budget was finally debated by MPs this week after the unrest at parliament by disciplinary forces demanding outstanding allowances.
The shadow treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey gave a savage response to the budget, saying Mr Abel's recent promises of fiscal discipline had been trashed.
"In the 2019 national budget, the Treasurer has gone from fiscal discipline to fiscal recklessness, with an explosion in expenditure - over a billion kina more than he indicated just two months ago. What a two-faced outcome."
Mr Abel said the budget would provide tax relief for low income earners in the formal sector, and boost health and education services.
But government allocations to the health and education sectors - which in recent times have struggled to pay wages and provide adequate services - have reduced substantially in the last several years, according to economist Paul Flanagan.
He says the budget's purported increase in education funding was only in line with inflation at 6.6 percent.
"There is no net increase that's required to pay the teachers the three percent agreement that was planned. And there is not enough funds there to increase the number of teachers that are actually required for the many, many tens of thousands of PNG students who are coming into schooling each year. Overall education has actually suffered some very big cuts since 2015 - cuts of about 30 percent after you allow for inflation. Even more than health which has been cut by 17 percent."
Amid signs that PNG's provincial administrations will lose out with the budget, Mr Ling-Stuckey accused the Treasurer of deceit about keeping the accepted debt-to-GDP ratio below 35 percent.
He said the budget failed to include a US$3 billion appropriation required to pay PNG's mountainous debt.
"Voting for the reckless spending now means we would be breaching the law. We cannot in good conscience approve a budget that so clearly breaks the laws of this parliament, and would so threaten our children's future."
Despite the opposition's trenchant criticism, the 2019 budget was duly passed by the parliament.
