Marape: Budget sets foundation

PRIME Minister James Marape, pictured, says the recent Supplementary Budget has set the foundation for the 2020 Budget by stating the correct figures.
Marape said that Parliament was privileged to appreciate the state of the Papua New Guinea economy in totality, for the first time in many years.
He said irrespective of the number put, there was a perception that the figures presented in previous budgets had not shown the true picture of the state of the economy.
“As a responsible prime minister elected by 101 Members of Parliament, I felt it was my duty to appoint a treasurer, coming in fresh into treasury,” he said.
“I say that with greatest respect to former treasurers, but there was a perception in our society that every one of us, including myself from the previous government, tried to defend whatever numbers presented so with no preconceived view in mind, but with the intention to get the correct numbers out of treasury and establish a baseline, basic fundamental micro economic numbers in which we can launch out into the 2020 Budget preparations and beyond, we allowed Ian Ling-Stuckey to dissect clearly what was taking place in Treasury.”
Marape said the benefit of the Opposition leader and the public who need to know issues in totality in relations to the Supplementary Budget and that no one was ignorant of the MYEFO (Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook) produced by Treasury and it was establishing the status quo for this year.
“Circumstances change, revenues shrink and increase, but one thing the 2019 Supplementary Budget affirms is that it’s a trend and that fact was correlated by MYEFO. The fact is, revenue was sinking and expenditure was increasing and that was the trend that MYEFO had in June this year.”
Marape said the 2019 Supplementary Budget confirmed this alarming trend, something previous regimes did not clearly articulate in order for Parliament and the people to understand.
He said for the first time the budget figures includes all public debts.