Government to announce K1.26bil in concessional financing

THE Government is expected to announce next week a K1.26 billion in “concessional financing” from the International Monetary Fund with no interest, says Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey.
He told Parliament that at least K1.5bil in additional concessional financing was “well advanced”.
He also said the access to superannuation legislation would be debated in Parliament.
“We will be introducing changes to the superannuation legislation to provide cash for families because bread winners had lost their jobs estimated at about K500 million,” he said.
“Support has been provided to our banking sector to provide debt repayment deferrals and lower interest rates.
“However, I am still waiting for reports on how that has actually been put into practice.”
Ling-Stuckey said the Government did not directly control commercial banks.
He said the deferral of tax payments to later this year should support the cash-flow situation of businesses to support jobs. He said only K0.6bil of the K5.7bil economic stimulus package was for direct budget expenditure.
“The first reason was revenue shortfalls and the second is our rigid budgeting systems not designed for an emergency response,” he said.
“On the economic front, PNG is not immune from the adverse impacts of the Covid-19.”
Ling-Stuckey said the Gross Domestic Product growth was expected to fall by 3.7 per cent – from the 2 per cent growth forecast to minus 1.7 per cent.