Stop borrowing, let’s live within our means

LEADERSHIP in politics is about lawmaking and policy-making.
Any country runs it’s budgets annually based on government policies.
No government runs its development plans on an ad hoc basis, except in banana republics and failed nation states.
Ad hoc decision-making and spending of public monies often yield dead-end impacts and results.
Papua New Guinea annually budgets K18 billion, of which, total revenues collected hangs around K10 billion.
We continue to make the call for the Government to be prudent and cost conscious by handing down a realistic cost cutting budget of K10 to K12 billion so our expenditure plan balances our revenue plans so there is not much need to accumulate debts.
Frame a realistic budget by cutting excessive and wastage in government departments and agencies, streamline and delete duplication of roles and functions.
Public service right-sizing recommendations are collecting dust.
Responsible respective committees in Parliament for controlling costs for government businesses need to step up in terms of their work.
Their failure has led to where we are now.
Let’s live within our means.
Let’s have a balanced budget annually and cut down on excessive loans and debts.
We can’t continue to run a country every year by borrowing endlessly.
We are killing ourselves as a nation.
We need to rethink the way we want to conduct politics, public policy, public administration, budgeting, strategic planning and implementation of government programmes and plans in the years to come.

Samson Komati,
PNG TTG Inc