Parkop gripes over budget

 By HELEN TARAWA

PORT Moresby will need K500 million annually to run the city, Governor Powes Parkop says.

He said the annual budget of less than K300 million was not enough.

He told The National for a city like Port Moresby with a population of almost a million, there was no such thing as an ideal budget as everyone kept wanting more and more. 

“It’s not possible to provide for the type of city our size with just below K200 million, it’s impossible.

“We are trying our best and sometimes our best might not be enough, but we are only as good as the resources that we have.”

Parkop said the budget had not seen an increase, it’s just below K300 million and that’s almost the same as last year because they were not generating new revenue.

“The past many years, we have been increasing the budget a bit because the revenue base has been increasing,” Parkop said.

“With the global situation and how it affects our country, we cannot project bigger revenue, so we have sort of being conservative in our estimate of the revenue we are going to get. So we have not increased the budget. 

“The only shift is that shifting resources from physical infrastructure to social and economic issues and I’ll be highlighting those soon. 

“But for me, if I had a budget like K500 million, I believe we can run the city efficiently.

“Just below K300 million – that’s impossible to run the city with all the demands like building roads, maintaining them, the entire infrastructure for markets, recreation, collecting rubbish and providing all those types of services to our people.”