Govt needs plan to boost businesses

By DALE LUMA
THE Government needs to come up with a clear plan that will give confidence to the business community to start investing in development projects, Credit Corporation chief executive officer Peter Aitsi says.
Aitsi said the Governments’ aspirations were being supported but there had not been a clear plan indicating how it would action its priorities.
“The honeymoon is over and the aspirations of the Government is supported but it has been three months and there has not been any definitive plan that tells us that we are on the path to recovery,” he said.
“There isn’t a clear plan that articulates the priorities of the Government which tells us the corporates to have confidence to go out and finance some of the developments that we have planned.
“This is the difficulty that we are facing as a business community.
“The reality is that we are a small import dependent economy.
“We have a fairly low infrastructure base and that impacts on our ability to conduct our business and that is a hurdle that we will have to overcome.
“In terms of our current predicament, as we look at the various reports that we are getting, the reality is that we have a major problem,” he said.
“In terms of the Government’s financial ability, I think they are really under a very significant pressure and that is being felt.
“From a finance industry standpoint, we are starting to see that.
“If you have taken the time to look at the newspapers in the last six or four-month period, you will have seen that more and more mortgage sales being advertised in the papers.
“That’s a lead indicator of an economy that is struggling.
“Business are not getting paid by the government and individuals who are employed by these contractors are not getting paid and as a result lose their jobs and are not able to look after their families.”
Aitsi said that there needed to be a restructure of the economy but the reality of the current situation was that the country needed foreign currency coming in and quickly.
“Hopefully the two projects, the Papua LNG and the Wafi-Golpu projects can be the saviours for our country,” he said.
“The external financing that we go after will come at significant cost.
“We don’t have a broad enough economic base in order for us to manage the obligation of these external funding without the extractive sector and that needs to be registered by the government.”