Abel keen to improve budget spending

DEPUTY Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel has tabled the Public Money Management Regulation Bill 2017 in Parliament to improve spending within the budget.
Abel said one of the regulations in the Bill was to limit claims against the State.
“The State has been forced to meet payments that are nothing less than legal scams,” he said.
“The first is where no valid contract exists, but work was performed. In this case, the state is forced to pay the cost of the work performed, even though it was not procured.
“The second is when people purport to make promises of payment on behalf of the State as they appear to have the authority, even though they do not. Both of these abuses are removed by the Bill.”
Abel said the bill demonstrated that the State was serious about improving the fiscal health of PNG.
“Public funds that are raised by public and statutory bodies as non-tax revenue rightly belong in the Consolidated Revenue Fund so that they may be appropriated for expenditure by Parliament,” he said.
“It has been the practice of some public and statutory bodies to retain, without authority, this non-tax revenue to meet operational and other expenditures.”