PM says K2-K3bil for infrastructure

By JEFFREY ELAPA
BETWEEN K2 billion and K3 billion of the 2013 Budget will go towards improvement of infrastructure, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said yesterday.
Addressing the provincial governors’ conference at the March Girls Resort outside Port Moresby.
O’Neill said the government was committed to improving infrastructure such as road network, bridges, telecommunication, and education and health facilities.
There was no mention of the US$6 billion loan to be raised from China, which O’Neill earlier said was needed for the deteriorating infrastructure in the country.  
Although the budget, to be delivered on Tuesday, is expected to be much higher than this year’s K10.4 billion,  the prime minister said for the first time, it would empower governors and the open members to focus on improving their districts and provinces.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Leo Dion, who is the chairman of the governors’ conference, said the government would be committing K2 billion to development grants for provincial governments, where governors would have a lot of money to cater for their development agendas.

O’Neill said the provinces would be getting direct funding through the budget but it would come with strict guidelines to improve the government’s development agendas such as education, health, law and order, infrastructure and small to medium enterprises.
He said the country had missed many opportunities over the years with good economic growth but, this government was committed to improving districts and provinces where the bigger population was based.
O’Neill said there would be a small deficit in the budget, but strategies were in place to address it. It was unlikely to have great repercussions on the economy and development of the country.
He also revealed that the economy was likely to drag when the PNG LNG construction phase scaled down before the  export of gas.
He said the construction of the project had added 3% to the 9% increase in the GDP but that would decrease and affect the economy and many people would lose jobs. However, the onus was on the provincial and national governments to focus and plan long-term sustainable programmes, with emphasis on infrastructure.
The issue of autonomy for Bougainville would be considered but not before considering how it has progressed, O’Neill said.