Country will suffer due to virus, says O’Neill

THE country will suffer an economic crisis in the next 10 months due to the global emergency outbreak of the coronavirus, says Ialibu-Pangia MP Peter O’Neill.
The former prime minister said the Government should listen carefully to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
“With the global outbreak, the Chinese economy is shutting down,” he said.
“Even the LNG shipment was turned back,” he said.
O’Neill made the statement during Opposition Leader Belden Namah’s 50th birthday celebrations in Port Moresby last Saturday, saying politics came and went.
“Why shouldn’t the former prime minister and the Opposition leader worry about our country?” he said.
“Do you think we do not care?
“If you are really interested in knowing than I’ll tell you, in 10 months’ time the country is going to hit a financial crisis.”
O’Neill said that if the Government was allowed to continue running down the economy, then soon, people would be out of jobs.
“And that is what the Opposition is fighting for,” he said.
“It’s all because of our country. Be realistic, look at the situation.”
“Don’t wait around for miracles, God did not say he will give you miracles every day.
“God said that you are the miracle.”
Namah supported O’Neill, saying the country needed leadership and not “verbal diarrhoea” from Prime Minister (James Marape).
He said Marape’s “policy” of making Papua New Guinea the richest black nation was racist and asked who the prime minister was trying to take PNG back from.