K47mil revenue for immigration

DESPITE the closure of Papua New Guineas borders during 2021 as a result of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the Immigration and Citizenship Authority recorded a good K47 million in revenue and registered a surplus of K6.5 million after expenditure.
Although there was a big decrease in the number of overseas arrivals and therefore revenue, ICA reported steady revenue collection on behalf of the Government through visa renewals and e-Visa applications.
Total migration services fees collected during the year totalled K27,780,000 with K10.35 million of that coming from on-line payments.
In the year under review, the authority also successfully transferred the functions for the processing and issuing of the work permit from the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations to the PNGICA.
This division is responsible for receiving, assessing and issuance of Work Permit letters and Identification Cards.
The move has further enabled the merger of Work Permit with the Working Resident Visa.
This was made possible with the passage of the Employment of Non-Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the Immigration and Citizenship Service (Amendment) Act.
The processing time for travel documents has been reduced from 15 working days to seven.
This has enhanced and sped up the processing and release of passports to applicants.
Between Jan 4 and Dec 31, 2021 a total 18,373 travel documents were processed.
In the same period 11,692 new entry visas were processed.
The appointment of a permanent Chief Migration Officer (CMO) early in 2021 in Stanis Halahau helped to accelerate development, including the internal recruitment of staff to the 392 approved organization structure, members of the Immigration and Citizenship Authority Advisory Board (ICSA) and those of the Citizenship Advisory Committee (CAC).
Hulahau brought to the post his extensive experience as the officer in charge for borders, enforcement and compliance division of the authority as well as roles as director of National Security of the Office of Security Coordination and Assessment.
New border posts were established during the year in Buin, South Bougainville and the Mt Hagen post was upgraded.
On the international front, the Governments of PNG and Australia jointly agreed to cease the Regional Resettlement Arrangement (RRA) Agreement by Dec 31, 2021.
The remaining 119 persons seeking asylum and who were still in Port Moresby after the end of the year were given the option to resettle in a third country.

Committee to monitor budget expenditure

A COMMITTEE has been established to look at expenditure of the country’s budget every week, says Prime Minister James Marape.
“I want to assure you all that economy is managed, since we entered office, we put another layer of cash management oversight apart from what we used to have before which was called Public Debit Committee that sits every week to look at expenditure, we now have overlaid this with Budget Management Committee,” Marape said.
He said this in response to comments raised by few Members of Parliament about how the Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey is spending money, making budget and about the Supplementary Budget which Treasurer Ling-Stuckey presented on Thursday in Parliament.
“I want to assure Parliament and the country that we have now added a committee that looks into how funds are disbursed weekly.
Marape highlighted that this came out as a result of his eight years’ experience serving in finance ministry in the past administration where sometimes money could spent all over the place, even breaking what had already been in the budget.
“So we overlaying this, we added a layer of scrutiny so that we are sticking to the budget, we are being fair all around, we are spending on priority sectors and we are retiring what needs to be retired in a systematic manner,” he said.
He further clarified that item 207 in the budget was not a new item, it was a common item treasury used when there was a supplementary budget, Treasury as the supervisor of all the government expenditure with Finance were together put it into item 207.

Kainantu MP cites problems with mini-budget

KAINANTU MP William Hagahuno has found problems with the 2023 supplementary budget that was presented in Parliament last Thursday by Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey.
“The problem I find with this budget is that it is a budget document and once it is passed then it becomes law and the speech by the Treasurer Ling-Stuckey is not the law,” he said.
He said the speech did not specify which items that funds were going to be disbursed, where the expenditure would be applied and he found problems with that because item 207, which was miscellaneous, seemed to have been left at the discretion of whoever that was going to spend the money and so as the public debts charges.
“I have seen surplus budgets being delivered previously and items were specifically set out under what items, which specific areas the expenditure was going to be applied to but that is lacking in this document,” he said.
“I do not want to go by what the good treasurer has provided here, that we will use the money to retire debts, support PNG Power, unless those items are specifically stated in the budget appropriation bill.”

MP tells depts to use funds wisely

THE Government cannot be blamed for micromanaging funds, it is the role of government departments, says Popondetta MP Richard Masere.
While commending Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey about the surplus budget, Masere urged the departmental heads to use the funding allocated wisely.
“When the Government makes funding allocation to the departments, it is up to them to make sure the money is managed properly,” he said.
“If they cannot manage, they cannot keep throwing stones back to the Government that we have not allocated the funds or the money has not gone to the right sectors because the Government macromanages,” he said.
He said from his understanding, ministers were policy makers and they did not count every money that were spent by departments.
“We make the funding available but the people must be accountable so when the money is given to the police, for example, it is the police commissioner that must make sure that the money is given to the provinces and must be spent correctly,” he said.
He said same went for the health, education, Connect PNG programme and government institutions like Defence Force.
Masere also suggested one of the important things the Government should seriously look at was to know the exact population so that it could make decisions, especially relating to the budget, according to population.
“When we are planning our budgets, it comes down to numbers and right now we don’t know our population and we are probably making estimations,” he said.
He said a ministry could be created to be specifically responsible for National Statistics, Electoral Commission, National Identification and all other areas that dealt with population so that they could provide valid population figures.
He further said that the other sectors that the Government could look into was the tourism sector which could help grow economy.
“We have a beautiful country which is so diverse,” he said.
He said we must take ownership, stop law and order, respect the community, be united and in grow the economy and the country would move forward.”

Govt hailed for revenue and surplus budget

YANGORU-Saussia MP and Minister for International Trade and Investment Richard Maru has commended the Government for raising revenue and delivering a surplus budget.
“We haven’t seen such situation in a very long time so I want to commend the Government and treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey because this is not something that is easily achieved at difficult times like this,” he said.
Maru said this in his debate in Parliament last Thursday regarding the Supplementary Budget presented by the treasurer.
“As I sat and listened to the treasurer Ling-Stuckey it is very obvious that the bulk of this surplus funds, K273 billion is going to retire debt, increase interest rate costs and K211 billion is going to assist PNG Power Ltd to help us with our power problems which we all know about,” he said
“Our provinces are suffering, including my own province so K500 million is going to these two major items and we are creating so much fuss only about K200 million that we are talking about,” he said.
He said the National Executive Council (NEC) commitments also include the Police and Defence Force in operations that need to be paid, expenses that need to be made by the Government.
“So I think the Government has done a wonderful job and needs to be commended for a job well done and that I think that no one seems to appreciate that the budget for this year, both recurrent and capital budget are preserved,” Maru said.
“I’ve been in Governments where capital budgets have been slashed year in year out, every time and this is the first time in a long time our budgets are not affected, you’ll get your district service improvement programme (DSIP) and all the planned capital projects are going to be funded all the way to the end of the year.”