Capital budget will continue increase: Minister

THE country’s capital budget will continue to increase by about 10 per cent over the medium term which is important for the resources sector, Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey says.
Ling-Stuckey said this when addressing the 2019 PNG Mining and Petroleum conference at the Stanley Hotel in Port Moresby yesterday.
He said from a business perspective, the government had been “under capitalised” and it was now one of its priorities to improve its capital budget.
“Under very difficult circumstances, our capital budget will continue to grow by about 10 per cent over the medium term and that is really important,” he said.
“The structure of the national budget is broken up into the operating budget and the capital budget.
“Our operating budget comes in at K10.2 billion whilst our capital budget comes in at K6.2 billion. As a percentage, operating budget is 52.5 per cent and capital budget is 34 per cent.
“What that means is that out of every K1 spent next year, 55 toea will be spent in the public sector and shared among 320,000 public servants.
“The other 34 toea out of K1 will be shared among the rest of us, about 8.5 million people.”
Ling-Stuckey added that one of the new policy announcements tabled this week was the Government’s PNG connect initiative.
“The initiative is not just about building roads in the country but we are trying to work smarter and identify economic corridors,” he said.
“This is underpinned not just by a road network, but supported by telecommunications and energy.
“We are starting out small with next year’s budget with a K200mil.”