Opposition says 2019 plan a failure without Apec chances

The National National

THE 2019 Budget fails because it does not embrace the opportunities provided by the just-concluded Apec 2018, says Shadow Minister for Treasury and Finance Ian Ling-Stuckey.
In his budget response presented in Parliament yesterday, Ling-Stuckey said: “The Budget continues down a path of declining standards of living for our people, of polio outbreaks, of shortages of vital medicines, of teachers not being paid, tuition fees arriving months and months late, if at all, of falls in jobs, of sky-rocketing cost of living, of more than a trebling of our debt levels from K8 to K28 billion, of debt interest costs up from K400 million to K2 billion, of expensive foreign loans and promises of more to come.
“Districts were promised K12 million, not K10 million in DSIP funds for 2018, but to date, Government MPs received K7 million and Opposition MPs K5 million.
“We have money in this country, record revenue this year, record budget next year, as the Treasurer continues to boast but our little people just don’t see it, feel it or smell it.”
“Our people deserve better budgets and better management, not Maseratis and big bridge contracts.”
Ling-Stuckey said the “Alternative Government” supported Apec but not:

  • Extravagant and greedy expenditure of over K1.5 bil and still rising, to host it;
  • for Port Moresby alone;
  • selfish priorities and construction of meeting venues, when hospitals are falling apart;
  • greedy, unfair, and one-sided allocation of K500 million of inflated service contracts; and,
  • Selfish priorities and construction of extravagant meeting venues, when our country’s major hospitals are falling apart, in desperate need of maintenance and major refurbishment.