Marat warns of hard times

 RABAUL MP Dr Allan Marat (pictured) has warned people that they will face some negative economic developments created by bad Government decisions.

He said the negative impacts had triggered sharp declines in agriculture commodity prices on copra and cocoa, plus the continuous decline in the value of the kina  against currencies of our trading partners on the world market.

Marat said the Government had no fiscal discipline to control the economy, resulting in deficit budgets causing a huge debt level which was higher than the World Bank benchmark of about 33 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.

He said an example was the US$1.3 billion (K3bn) UBS loan of which K900 million  was used to acquire 10 per cent shares in Oil Search Limited.

Marat said the Government acquisition of shareholdings in the ILG project had cost K19 billion, while the total budget for 2015 was K11 billion.

“While all these wrongs are contributing to economic problems, people at the community level are made to suffer the consequences,” he said.

Marat was speaking on Monday at Pilapila on the north coast of Rabaul when he launched a week-long show of handicraft and agricultural produce.