Ongoing divestments causing massive job losses: Pruaitch

OPPOSITION Leader Patrick Pruaitch says the ongoing divestments by foreign corporations have contributed to massive job losses in the past six years.
Pruaitch said private sector job losses disclosed by the Central Bank was worse than the estimated 120,000 jobs lost because thousands of public sector jobs had been created with the Government wages bill doubling to K5 billion.
He said World Bank data on Foreign Direct Investment in PNG showed that businesses have divested assets in five of the last seven years, beginning with a US$309.8 million (K1bil) outflow caused by political uncertainty in 2011, Pruaitch said.
He said the World Bank data had been supported by the Bank of Papua New Guinea.
“In its most recent Economic Bulletin for the September quarter of 2018, BPNG stated that PNG’s capital and financial account had worsened by K911 million to a K13,636 million deficit in the nine months to September last year.
“This was because outflows of direct and other investments reflecting equity withdrawals and build-up in foreign currency balances of mining, oil and LNG companies which more than offset transfers by donor agencies for project financing,” Pruaitch said.
He said the trend in businesses downscaling or shutting operations in PNG continued to influence business sentiment and the climate for investments with the latest pullback taking place with the ANZ Bank selling off its retail and commercial operations to focus on big business.
“In recent weeks we have also seen two companies delisted on the Port Moresby Stock Exchange following the takeover of Highlands Pacific by Canada’s Cobalt 27 and a decision by Kina Petroleum to change their domicile from Papua New Guinea to the British Virgin Islands,” he said.