Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698056247924.pdf (Papua New Guinea)
Second Day _______________________________ Wednesday 31 August 2022 DRAFT HANSARD _____________________________ Subject: Page No: RETURN OF WRITS ................................................................................................................. 1 QUESTIONS .............................................................................................................................. 2 Reserved Business Activity and Employment Policy ......................................................................... 2 Port Moresby General Hospital Deaths Update .................................................................................. 5 Supplementary Question-Sorcery-Related Violence ......................................................................... 10 22 Misima Islands ............................................................................................................................. 12 SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS – EXTENDED TIME FOR QUESTION ................ 17 Carbon Trade Legislation ................................................................................................................. 17 Kokopo Sewerage Project ................................................................................................................. 18 No School Materials - Nawae ........................................................................................................... 20 MINISTER FOR TREASURY - 2022 MID-YEAR ECONOMIC AND FISCAL OUTLOOK– MOTION TO TAKE NOTE OF PAPER – PAPER NOTED ................................................... 23 ADJOURNMENT ..................................................................................................................... 41 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES CORRECTIONS TO DAILY DRAFT HANSARD The Draft Hansard is uncorrected.
It is also privileged.

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Until the expiration of this one-week period, Draft Hansard must not be quoted as final and accurate report of the debates of the National Parliament.

Corrections maybe marked on a photocopy of the Daily Draft Hansard and lodged at the Office of the Principal Parliamentary Reporter, Al -23 (next to the Security Control Room).
Corrections should be authorized by signature and contain the name, office and telephone number of the person transmitting/making corrections.

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Corrections should relate only to inaccuracies.

New matters may not be introduced, Principal Parliamentary Reporter SECOND DAY Wednesday 31 August 2022 The Deputy Speaker (Mr Koni Iguan) took the Chair at 10.am.
There being no quorum present, Mr Deputy Speaker, stated that he would resume the Chair after the ringing of the Bells.

Sitting suspended.

The Deputy Speaker again took the Chair at 10.36 am and invited the Member for Central Bougainville, Honourable Simon Dumarinu to say prayers.

‘Heavenly Father, we come before you today seeking your guidance to serve our people who have entrusted us with this leadership here now.
We ask for your strength, your guidance, your spirit that will drive us to translate your love and care for us to be a servant to all; for the nation Papua New Guinea.

I pray that you guide us in todays’ deliberations.

Help us as we try to provide for our people and in doing so, we serve you humbly in our own way, in our different positions as MPs and staff inside Parliament.

I pray and commit all these and many of our silent prayers to you.
In Jesus Name, Amen.’ RETURN OF WRITS Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Honourable Members in accordance with section 175 of the Organic Law on the National and Local Level Government Election, I now lay on the table the eleven Return of Writs for the General Election 2022, which His Excellency, the Governor General issued on Thursday 28 June 2022.
Mr Speaker, has received the Return of the Writs for the following electorates; Chimbu Provincial, Kerowagi Open, Eastern Highlands Provincial, Henganofi Open, Madang Provincial, Rai Coast Open, Markham Open, Kabwum, Moresby North-East Open, Moresby North-West Open, Southern Highlands Provincial.

Mr Speaker, has administered the Declaration of Loyalty and the Declaration of Office on Tuesday 23, August 2022 at the B2 Conference Room.
On Monday 29 August 2022 at the 1 State Function Room and the Speaker’s Lounge respectively for the following Members of Parliament.

Honourable Noah Kool, Honourable Francis Siune, Honourable Simon Sia, Honourable Robert Atiyafa, Honourable Ramsey Pariwa, Honourable Koni Iguan, Honourable Patrick Basa, Honourable John Kaupa, Honourable Lohia Boe Samuel and Honourable William Powi.

I welcome the new members to Parliament.


02/02 QUESTIONS Reserved Business Activity and Employment Policy Mr JOHN KAUPA – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Firstly, I would like to thank the people of Markham for re-electing you to Parliament and congratulate you on your appointment as the Deputy Speaker for the second time in this 11th Parliament.

On the same token, I thank the people of Tari-Pori and congratulate Honourable James Marape on his election as the Prime Minister.
Before I ask my question, I would like to thank the people of Moresby North-East for choosing me out of 76 candidates that contested in that electorate within our metropolitan city.

This Parliament is located within my electorate, so is the Jacksons International Airport which you arrive at, when you come to Port Moresby.

I want to thank the people of Moresby North-East electorate within this city because they chose me to represent them in this Parliament regardless of my ethnic relations towards them.
I salute them for choosing me to represent them for the second time.

Since it is the second time, I will be expected to perform even more.

When there is consistency and continuity of leadership, you will see development and progress in your electorate and country because of the stability.

So, I thank you all for coming to my electorate in this metropolitan city, I welcome you all.
My question is directed to the Minister for Labour and that question was asked in the 10th Parliament; however, I am raising it again.

(1) Do we have a policy on reserved businesses for Papua New Guineans and reserved employment for Papua New Guineans?

I want the Minister to take serious consideration on this matter because we now have more students graduating each year from primary schools, secondary schools and colleges.

But these graduates cannot find employment.


2 At the same time, we see local businesses and local jobs are being taken over by foreigners.

My question to the Minister for Labour and the Minister for Immigration can take note.

Some of these foreigners cannot speak English or even Pidgin, and our laws state that, a foreigner who does not know the English language should not be allowed into the country.
But today, they are everywhere, even at 8-Mile settlement, setting up tucker shops and working at the cash register.

(1) Does the Minister have a plan or a policy in place to give opportunity to our local businessmen who want to prosper and move forward?

That is my first point in regards to local businesses.

03/02 Secondly, there are some foreigners working as cashiers in retail shops.

(2) Is there a law that demarcates specific jobs only reserved for Papua New Guineans?
I am asking these two important questions, because, it is just the beginning of the Eleventh Parliament and we do not want to see foreigners coming in taking over our beautiful country.

We have so many resources but why are our people are still on the streets collecting plastics?

If there is no law regulating these issues, then we must enact laws and enforce them so that our citizens can have equal opportunities.

Can the Minister please answer and clarify these two questions?

Thank you, Deputy Speaker.


Mr BRYAN KRAMER (Madang – Minister for Labour and Immigration) – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I would like to acknowledge the important question from the Member for Moresby North-East.

I would like to also congratulate him for returning his seat as Member- elect for Moresby North-East.

This issue affects a lot of us in this country, so I will answer him in Tok Pisin.

This is not a new issue and I am happy that he has raised it again.
I have been recently appointed as the minister responsible for both Immigration and Labour.

The issue you raised is important.

You asked if there is a law already in place, well there are existing laws.

I have not checked on it yet, but I understand there is an ongoing amendment to that law.

It is still on the table to be passed to increase the list of reserved business, specifically for the citizens of Papua New Guinea.
3 Some foreigners coming into our country with only a suitcase and start working as cashiers at a Chinese, Indian or Sri Lankan retail shops, and in less than three years, they are already operating their own businesses and becoming millionaires.

They have no respect for our people that are working for them.

They do not even pay them the minimum wage, yet their families are becoming overnight millionaires in Papua New Guinea.

We can never go to their country and become millionaires.
This is an ongoing issue that has been going on for years without any law enforcements.

Under the wisdom of the Prime Minister, he merged Immigration and Labour into one department.

I have raised this issue a while back when I was not the minister yet.

I kept on asking the then minister why his ministry kept issuing work permits and visas to foreigners.

The Department of Immigration informed me that the Department of Labour issues work permits.
When the work permits are given out, the Department of Labour has no choice but to issue visas.

Once work permits are issued by the Department of Labour, Immigration has no choice and cannot question their decision.

Now that these two departments are under one minister, it will be easy to work on both sides.

There are laws and some reserved business are on the list but there was no one to enforce it.

We will check and start to enforce it right away.


In regards to minimum wage, we will check the regulations and we will enforce minimum wage.

I want to make this clear, businesses do not come under the Department of Labour and Immigration, but under the Department of Commerce.

We will sit with the Minister for Commerce and talk about foreign businesses operating business activities reserved for Papua New Guineans.

We can cancel their licences, and at the same time cancel their work permits and visas.
We look forward to working with them.

But as far as visas and work permits are concerned, we can deport people breaking these laws and there is a plan in place regarding this.

I want to make it clear that when we enforce this, I do not want any member of Parliament or a minister calling me for favours.

At least, I make it public.

Mr Garry Juffa – Point of Order!

Mr Deputy Speaker, before I raise my point of order, these issues are ongoing and have to be solved.
I do not want to point fingers, so please get your staff to attend to this.

These are some of the issues that needs to be dealt with.

These are outstanding issues and our Parliament does not have the appropriate facilities for us to be able to perform our duties effectively.

4 My point of order is relation to a comment made by the good minister.

If people are breaching the laws of this country and are found to be unlawfully in the country.
Before we deport them, let’s prosecute them and ensure that they pay the penalties that are there, and if needed to be placed in jails.

Let’s place them there to serve a term and let them pay for committing these breaches before we deport them.

04/02 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Honourable Governor, your Point of Order is in order but it seems that you are commenting on the Minister’s reply.

The Minister can continue on.

Mr BRYAN KRAMER – Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker.


I take note of the Point of Order raised by the Governor, but whether we deport or imprison them depends on the penalty.

If the penalty indicates that they have breached the labor law, then we can prosecute them.

But, if there is no breaching of the law they must be fined only and we can cancel their visa and remove their work permit.
But if it’s a criminal case then I take note of the Governor’s comment and if it needs further amendments to be included, then we can do that.

To conclude on the questions raised by the Member for Moresby North-East, we will carry out the operation as part of the reform set by Marape-Rosso Government.

All we want is assistance from each member from every district.

You know exactly where every tucker shop is located and we need your help.
When we ask for information from your people to assist us in all these business operations in every location.

For complaints in relation to this issue, we will setup a complaint desk to attend to this.

So, starting this year and next year onwards, you should expect a lot of operations to be carried out by my Ministry.

I will surely need support from relevant ministers and members.

Thank you.
Thank you.

Port Moresby General Hospital Deaths Update Mr ELIAS KAPAVORE – Thankyou Mr Deputy Speaker, on behalf of the people of Pomio, I congratulate you as the Deputy Speaker of the 11th Parliament.

I want to direct my question to the Minister for Health.

But firstly, I thank the Prime Minister for appointing the two ministers for Health.

I also thank the former Minister for Health for his work in the Health Department.
On the 21 August 2021, we all have read and witnessed a major problem that occurred at Port Moresby General Hospital, which is the biggest hospital in our country.

Seven people 5 were admitted at the hospital and under-went major operations, unfortunately four died during the operation.

In relation to this major issue, I have raised questions on the Floor of Parliament several times last year for an investigation to be carried out on this major issue.
I also requested for a coroner’s inquest on the real cause of the death of the four people during their operation.

This is so that it will put to rest and give peace to the grieving relatives and concerned people.

In that way, it will also restore trust and confidence back to our health systems in the country.

My question is: (1) Can the Minister clarify on this Floor the outcome and at what level it is at regarding the investigations carried out so far?

Dr LINO TOM – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.


I take this opportunity to thank Honourable Elias Kapavore for his question.

Before I answer the question, I want to congratulate you for being re-elected as the Deputy Speaker.

I also want to thank the Prime Minister, Honourable James Marape and his Deputy Honourable John Rosso, the Pangu Led-Government for appointing me as the Minister for Health in this important sector.
I also want to the thank my colleague the former Minister for Health, Honourable Jelta Wong.

He was appointed to lead this Ministry during the major pandemic and it takes a man to step up and lead, as he did.

Therefore, on behalf of my people and myself, I thank the former Minister for the good work he had done.

I also thank you all for being elected as the mandated leaders representing our people.

I will be brief by saying that investigations have been carried out on the four people who died.
The investigations have been completed and findings have been done.

I have not resumed my office yet, but I have met briefly with the Secretary and the senior executives.

This was the first issue I raised because it had been raised on this Floor of Parliament several times and I knew that you would raise it again.

In the briefing, they advised me that investigation have been completed.
For all member’s information, when any one dies whilst at the hospital and if it is medical related death, the first thing they do is, a coroner’s inquest.

It is compulsory for them to do that because relatives will come and ask questions on the cause of death.

6 05/02 The report is available and the investigation into the drug Propofol when they have used and the cause of death is available too but the matter is before the Courts.
I therefore think it will be in-contempt of court for us to put out the report.

They are still keeping it but as soon as the court proceedings are over, we will table this report.

The coroner’s report is one of the important things.

Though, the death of these four patients is unfortunate, it raises very important matters which the government must address.

One being the critical shortage of drugs in the country.
We talk about corruption regarding drugs procurements, the first thing I plan to do, is to outsource the drug procurements to some important development partners so that it is off our hands.

When this happens, they can be accountable for it because it seems that we can’t be accountable to our own people.

That is one of the first steps that we are planning to take.

You must be aware that purchasing of medicine is very expensive.
According to the brief report I received, the cost of medicine is about K347 million per year and in the budget we only have K200 million.

This is a difference of K147 million.

We have many issues there but we can’t blame anyone.

The responsibility for all these deaths is on us.

As soon as the court is over, I will produce this report to Parliament for everyone’s benefit.

Thank you.

Ms KESSY SAWANG – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.


Before I ask my question, on behalf of my people of Rai-Coast, I want to congratulate the Honourable James Marape for being re-elected as the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.

I also want to congratulate the Deputy Speaker on your re-election.

Mr Deputy Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for Internal Security.

The background on my questions are as follows.


The Nahu-Rawa and Naiyudo Local Level Governments in the Rai-Coast District has been greet by conflict, terror and violence for over a decade and counting.

These have stamped from disputes related to sorcery-related killings, accusations and land disputes.

Over 300 people have been killed so far, entire villages have been burnt, women and girls raped and an estimated 20,000 people have been displaced.
For some Nahu-Rawa killings, 88 were sentenced to life imprisonment and eight were given death sentences some years back but these people have all escaped from the Beon Jail.

On such conflicts, Mr Deputy Speaker, people’s sufferings go beyond physical violence to psychological trauma, disruption to education, community support systems, hunger and food 7 insecurity, poverty and this conflict legacy thrives and it becomes complex.

Women and children suffer the most, Mr Deputy Speaker.
We also have chronic sea piracy terror with many lives lost at sea.

I was also a victim of sea piracy a few years back.

My district lacks police infrastructure resources and there are no road infrastructures.

The terror hot sports are hard to reach.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Rai-Coast District is a major contributor to the PNG economy through the Ramu Nickel Mine and the Ramu Agri Industries.

My farmers grow the best vanilla, coffee, and coconut.
According to the PNG Cocoa Board in Madang, Rai-Coast has the highest number of registered cocoa fermenters and we have the potential to contribute more to this nation.

Yet, successive governments have not harkened to the voices of my people’s suffering at the hands of these evil men.

Mr Deputy Speaker, we Rai-Coast people are PNG citizens and we expect our government to fulfil its social contract and protect and defend us.
I have both short and long term plans on how to break the cycle of terror and suffering and I need the government to support it.

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for your patience.

06/02 Mr Deputy Speaker, my questions are as follows: (1) Can the Minister give an undertaking that the National Government will help with the state’s resources of police, army and funding to support and immediately arrest and eliminate these threats?
(2) Can the Government prioritize and assist in building police infrastructure and place resources in the Rai Coast District?

(3) Can the Government in the long run build a mobile barracks in Madang because Madang is not only a crime hotspot.

But we also have incoming major economic investment like the PMIZ which this Government is keen on establishing.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the Floor.
Mr PETER TSIAMALILI JUNIOR – Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker, before I answer the questions from the Honorable Member of Rai Coast, let me take this time to congratulate you, on your appointment.

Secondly on behalf of my people of Bougainville, I would like to thank the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister for giving me this opportunity to manage the country’s 8 internal security.

I believe it serves as a big task where it has become the number one impediment in our young country.
Mr Deputy Speaker, before I answer questions raised by the Member for Rai Coast, the Honorable Kessy Sawang.

I would also like to congratulate you on the opportunity given to you by your people in giving you the mandate to come and represent them in this House.

Your leadership has allowed you to be their voice.

Therefore, on behalf of my people of Bougainville I congratulate you.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the questions that you have raised are very close to my heart.
I read your write-ups and in fact the position you are in is a very difficult position because you are dealing with a legacy issue; 20 000 lives of people being displaced is not an easy task.

I come from a background where I myself have gone through this very scenario that you are in at the moment.

That is why I sympathize with you.

I read the article this morning with tears when I was going through it.

I want to give you an assurance that I will speak to the Department responsible and our Commander.
We already have a budget in place and we will look at making arrests in this situation immediately.

Underneath my corporate plan, I will include your situation at Rai Coast in the 100-day plan.

I am therefore reassuring you that this situation will not be taken lightly under my watch.

It has been a legacy issue but we have been given this opportunity so we will act on it.

Mr Deputy Speaker, with regard to your other question about the Government creating a Police Barracks or a mobile unit in Madang.
I guess it comes under our strategy on how we can manage our law and order.

In my meeting earlier this morning.

I sat with corporate companies where we can be able to work with them in the Tax Credit Scheme in helping the Government in the possibility of a partnership in trying to help implement the infrastructure in addressing our law and order issues.

And also have an equal ration of police personnel to our people.
Therefore, Honourable Member for Rai Coast, from my department under the Ministry of Internal Security; although I was given this ministry just recently.

I have started working and I am reassuring you that your situation will be under my 100-day corporate plan.

Thank you for your questions and I hope I have answered them.

9 07/02 Mr PETER O’NEILL – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My Supplementary Question relates to the same question the Member for Rai Coast asked.
It is about sorcery related Supplementary Question violence.

As we know during the elections there were several women killed in the Enga Province.

Recently the families of those women who lost their lives asked – Mr Bryan Kramer – Point of Order!

With due respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, the question asked by the Member for Ialibu-Pangia is a new question.

It is not a supplementary because it doesn’t relate specifically to questions raised by the Member for Rai Coast.
He has been here long enough to understand when to ask a new question.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Honourable Member, the Minister’s point of order is in order but I have already given you the Floor to ask the question, I’ll entertain your question as a new question to the Minister.

Mr Luther Wenge – Point of Order!

The Standing Order is very clear, non-ministers should be asking questions.

Only the open members should be allowed to ask questions.
From where we are sitting, I am confused, who are the ministers and where are they sitting?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Honourable Governor, as you know the Minister raised the question as a point of order and that is why I entertained him.

I will not allow him to ask a question if he does.

Sorcery-Related Violence Mr PETER O’NEILL – I taught the Member for Rai Coast asked questions surrounding sorcery-related violence.

Are we serious about these issues?


Please these are very important issues affecting our people who are citizens of our country, especially women whom have lost their lives.

If this is not serious enough, what is?


Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to ask the Internal Security Minister, and firstly congratulate him for that ministry and the excellent start that he has taken, but please can you make a commitment to this House that your department will investigate this call by the families of those women who were killed recently because of sorcery-related accusations.

The family 10 members have come out recently in the papers asking for investigations and arrest of those perpetrators.
Is the investigation currently on-going?

Can he report back to this honourable House?

They need to be addressed.

These are Papua New Guineans losing their lives, Mr Deputy Speaker so let’s take this seriously.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker and I ask the Minister to put it into the budget that he is talking about and extend it to those families as well.

Mr PETER TSIAMALILI JUNIOR – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker and I thank the Member for Ialibu-Pangia.
I also extend my congratulation to you, Sir, for coming back to this big House.

Your question and your recommendation is good.

I have taken note and we will include those into our budgets to make this work.

Mr Deputy Speaker, let me also take this opportunity, to highlight how my department is a cross-cutting department that not only cuts through departments, agencies and all sectors but it pivots around leadership.

Mr Deputy Speaker, a lot of our problems in this country starts with leadership.
I just want to encourage all of us, while I have possession and custody of this department, I will need each and every one of you to take responsibility.

It needs a collaborative effort by the 118 leaders of this honourable House.

08/02 I will do the work but I will need your support.

We have manpower issues and challenges but together we can arrest the challenges that we are facing.

These law and order issues are everyone’s business.
I have taken note of the supplementary questions raised by the Member of Ialibu-Pangia and will report back to Parliament.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr SAM BASIL JUNIOR – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker and congratulations for your return to this Eleventh Parliament.

I want to raise only one question besides many challenges faced by my Bulolo people.

My question is in regards to our main national highway of Bulolo-Wau.

This highway is under the National Government function.
11 I heard that there was counterpart funding between PNG Government and AusAid.

The people of Bulolo want to know where this money is.

My question is directed to the Minister for Works and we need clarity on this, because this road will serve Wapi-Golpu and Hidden Valley gold mine.

The road condition is deteriorating and is not safe driving through this road.

Can the good Minister for Works inform the people of Bulolo on the progress of the road?

Thank you.
Thank you.

Mr SOLAN MIRISIM – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

On behalf of the people of Telefomin, I take this opportunity to congratulate you for the unanimous votes that elevated you to the Deputy Speaker post.

I also take this opportunity to congratulate the election of the Prime Minister and Speaker in this Eleventh Parliament.

It was unanimous because we have one common interest and that is to serve the people.
Mr Deputy Speaker, the road from 14-mile turnover towards Bulolo is one of the important roads where the government of Papua New Guinea and AUSAID has allocated funding.

The road contract was awarded and the contractors are on the ground working on this road.

I was recently appointed Minister for Works so I will get a full brief from the department and reply in detail during the next sitting to the people of Bulolo.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.


22 Misima Islands Mr DOUGLAS TOMURIESA – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

On behalf of my people of Kiriwina-Goodenough, I’d like to congratulate the Prime Minister and you and the people of Markham for voting you in one more time.

I also take this opportunity to congratulate all the minister who have been appointed to your respective portfolios.

I know many of you are new to these portfolios and it will take time for you to settle in.
The Member for Lae and the Minister for Lands has been there for a while, it is only proper that I ask him a question.

But, at this juncture let me take this opportunity also to congratulate the two honourable ladies, the Governor of Central and the Member for Rai Coast.

12 09/02 It is very refreshing to have a voice of a woman, representing all women on this Floor of Parliament and I would like to congratulate them once again.
I would like to also take this opportunity to congratulate the new Leader of the Opposition, Honourable Joseph Lelang.

Mr Deputy Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister who is also the Minster for Lands.

Recently, we have been seeing news on medias of land being taken from the people of Papua New Guinea.

I am referring to a conflict of a group of islands in Milne Bay Province.

There are 22 Islands just off the coast of Samarai Island, heading to Misima Island.
Interestingly these group of islands are on sale.

What concerns me is this; there is a PNG registered company owned by an expatriate and he’ coming to acquire these islands.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the concern that I have here is that so many times in these beautiful islands of Papua New Guinea, we allow foreigners to come in to acquire land and after some time decide to sell them.

And they acquire the lands very cheaply and sell them in very high prices.
The fact of the matter is, we depend heavily on these islands.

I come from a group of islands, the Trobriand Island, the Good-Enough islands including Esa’ala.

These are traditional hunting grounds for our people.

All of a sudden, somebody comes in to acquire these islands and our people cannot be even allowed to rest on these islands.

They usually travel by canoes and dinghies to go and rest on these islands because these were our traditionally hunting grounds.
Today our people cannot even rest on these islands because foreigners have taken over.

Mr Deputy Speaker, my concern is that those conflict group of islands are freehold land and owned by a PNG registered company which is owned by a foreigner.

Why do we allow them to come in and do business, and after they are dissatisfied, they decide to sell the island?

And in the social media, they have indicated that they are prepared to sell those group of islands for 30 million dollars.
My questions are as follows: (1) If these islands are on state lease, can the Minister forfeit the title and return the title back to the state or to the Milne Bay Provincial Government?

(2) If it is a customary land, can the Minister get our law enforcing agencies in and return the land to our people?

13 (3) If these arrangements continue, can the Minister for Lands engage genuine investors?
Engage investors who are prepared to come and invest on these islands because these are beautiful group of islands and are an attraction to tourists.

Let us bring in people who will invest out there and generate more income and employment for our people.

Let us revoke that lease, if I can get some assurance from the Minister for Lands.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.


10/02 Mr JOHN ROSSO (Lae - Minister for Lands, Physical Planning and Urbanisation) – Thank Mr Deputy Speaker and thank you for the very important question raised by the Member for Kiriwina-Goodenough.

I would like to first of all, congratulate the Deputy Speaker on your unanimous appointment.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Prime Minister on his unanimous appointment.
I would like to also congratulate the Opposition Leader and the Deputy Opposition Leader on their appointments.

It is good to have a very strong opposition so that we keep everyone in check and balance.

I would also like to congratulate every single member of Parliament sitting in here on your re-election.

It is good to see you all again.

I would like to make special mention of the two female representatives that are here with us in this Parliament today.
I thank your people for voting you into Parliament, and it’s a huge privilege to be able to see you both and work with you.

I will do my best as the Deputy Prime Minister to work closely with the both of you.

I would also like to say thank you to my people of Lae for giving me a unanimous vote of confidence to come back on the first count.

Again, thank you to my people of Lae.


Now back to the conflict islands; it is quite a coincidence that you asked me this question today because I actually have a brief that I asked for when the situation came through the social media.

I asked my department because of the importance of the case, to prepare a brief for me and a press release so that I could do a press release for the country as it is a matter of serious concern.
Let me highlight some quick points here; the conflict islands’ sales and transfer can only be made to a PNG citizen.

The questions we asked; how did the current title holder, believed to be a non-PNG citizen come to own this freehold titles for 20 years?

Because section 56 of the Papua New Guinea Constitution precludes non-citizens from owning freehold titles.
We must also understand that there are three types of landholdings that we have in PNG; one is alienated land owned by the Government, the other is the freehold land - acquired 14 through the colonial history.

The lands minister, through the law, does not have the power to forfeit that.

Then you have customary land - owned by landowners; the lands minister does not have the power to evict anyone on customary land.
So, we are looking at some ways to amend these acts, especially pertaining to freehold land, most of which are owned by our churches.

We want to do this so that these lands come under an auspicious of the Lands Department and the Minister responsible.

We are also trying to amend a few more laws, some of which were brought before our last Parliament before we rose, to ensure that land is protected for us.
At the same time, make it more visible for development and also make it more conducive with our customary landowners.

That is, in case you see the Tuhava Land Project that has allowed us to acquire 585 hectares working in cohesion with the developers and the landowners.

Thus, converting it from customary land into alienated land, giving them a 99-year lease, which makes the land available for development and making the land become bankable and valuable.
The Tuhava people now, through that conversion, have a value on that land for about K200 million; from being zero value to K200 million.

Now they have a partnership and a development that constitutes nearly K1.6 billion investment on 585 hectares; and that is what the Lands Department will be pursuing to try to free up a lot more customary land.
11/02 And I will be working closely with a lot of new members on this, especially in our towns and cities where we need more land for expansion and for agricultural developments.

This is part of our Pangu-led coalition government’s view to open up land for our country.
Back to the Conflict Islands, the Department of Lands has started investigations to establish the status of these freehold titles which are freehold, and to ascertain the ways these titles were created and granted to those we believe are not PNG citizens.

I would like to encourage the current title holder to come forward voluntarily and discuss these issues with me.
The position of the Government of PNG through the office of the Minister for Lands and Physically Planning, is that these islands and the sea belong to the broader global community because it is a part of the marine and sea life that sustains our global marine and pristine eco- system.
15 Therefore, PNG as the custodian of this part of the global marine eco-system, intends to declare the Conflict Islands as a conservation protected area to be administered by special purpose vehicle that has the same statute as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

That is my view, which is what I will be pursuing.

In summary, the Conflict Islands cannot be sold to non-citizens.

That is my stand and the PNG Government’s stand.


There will be an investigation to establish the status and the way the title was created and awarded, in the first instance.

The islands will be declared as a conservative protected area to be administered by special purpose vehicle as I alleged earlier, like the Great Barrier Reef, to protect it for our children to benefit from in future years.

I will be working closely with the Milne Bay Provincial Government to ensure that this is carried out.
In the meantime, I will not allow the Conflict Islands to be sold under my watch.

I will be pursuing proper talks with the current owner to see a way forward for this, but with a very firm view that will not allow these islands to be sold, likewise, other protected areas that we have in Papua New Guinea.

We will also look into the laws and amend some of the freehold issues that we have so that we can take back some of the lands that the current minister or the Department of Lands cannot administer.
We cannot forfeit freehold land.

With that, thank you for this good question.

While I have the Floor, I would also like to inform our people that we have medium housing developments available now.

We have partnered with Tuhava to allow 4,000 houses to be built there to alleviate housing in Port Moresby.

With Superfunds, there will be another 2,000 houses available.

The Comrade Trustees will also provide 2,000 houses and another 1,300 houses at Igam Barracks in Lae.
So, we will be putting nearly 8,000 houses onto the market for our medium-income tax payers.

Those 8,00 houses cost nothing from the government.

We have contributed nothing into developing any of these.

This will be done in partnership with superfunds and big business ventures.

They will incur all the costs from developing all these allotments.

We will also be working on partnership with alienated land and working with partnership with landowners, that is for a medium income earner.
We will also be working in cohesion with the current housing minister to try to also free up land for our lower income earners, like our drivers, security guards and taxi drivers.

We are working in that view in developing land for them too.

With that, thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.


16 SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS – EXTENDED TIME FOR QUESTION Motion (by Mr Rainbo Paita) agreed to – That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as it would prevent time for questions this day being extended by 20 minutes.

12/02 Carbon Trade Legislation Mr KEITH IDUHU – Thank you Deputy Speaker, for giving me this time.
Mr Deputy Speaker, let me firstly pay homage to the people of Hiri-Koiari and Koitabu, whose land on which we house the three pillars of our democracy; one of which we are all seated on here today.

Let me also take this time to congratulate the Prime Minister, Honourable James Marape and the Deputy Prime Minister on your successful return to this House.

I also congratulate the Opposition Leader, Honourable Joseph Lelang and the honourable members of this 11th Parliament.
My question relates specifically and stems from the responses by the Minister for Lands.

But my question is directed to the Minister for Forest.

Mr Deputy Speaker, at the end of the 10th Parliament there was much talk about the value of our resources and more specifically towards Carbon Trade.

There some very important projects in this country that have been initiated with huge land mass being pledged for carbon trade development to monetize this very specific but special area.
I know one for certain which is in Managalas and some other concessional areas.

I want to direct my question to the Minister for Forest.

I also congratulate, Honourable Salio Waipo on his appointment.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Honourable Member, may I interrupt you whilst you have this Floor, I would like to inform all honourable members and people seated in the Public Gallery, I want your phone to be switched off or put to flight mode because the phones ringing tones are a disturbance during session time.
Honourable Member, please continue!

Mr KIETH IDUHU – Thank you Deputy Speaker, the values of our resources as I was saying, are so much that not much is realized by our people.

This very special area in my mind 17 still sits without a regulatory regime.

It is floating between the Department of Environment and Conservation or the Department of Forestry.
My question is: (1) Will carbon trade be considered as a forest produce and if so, it should be covered in the Forestry Act when a legislative reform is brought to Parliament?

In a nut shell, Deputy Speaker, it may be an opportunity that will go begging yet again and if not addressed soon.

Thankyou.

Mr SALIO WAIPO – Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to take this time to congratulate you for being re-elected as the Deputy Speaker.
13/02 On behalf of my people of Angoram, I also want to thank the Prime Minister, his deputy, the Opposition leader, the two female Members of Parliament, the governors in this Government and the coalitions for having confidence in me and for appointing me as the watchman in the Forest.

To answer the question raised by the new Member for our new electorate, I understand that you also were the former chairman for Forest and the work you have done lives on.
I will consider this as the head of this department.

A policy will be brought to the Floor of this House to get the support to make sure that the carbon can be incorporated with the Forest Department so that we can bring full benefits to the people of this country.

I come from a district where April Salome Forest Management Area starts at the end of Angoram district all the way to Wosera-Gawi and Ambunti.
I also look forward to bringing this legislative amendment to the Floor of Parliament and I am working towards it.

I will also have your support as the former chairman of the board of Forest and I will closely work with all the ministers and members to bring these amendments.

I am new to the department.

I will get a brief from the department and table it on the Floor of Parliament in our next sitting.

Thank you.
Thank you.

Kokopo Sewerage Project Mr EREMAN TOBAINING JUNIOR - Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, or recognising the people of Kokopo.

I want to congratulate you and the Prime Minister, Honourable James Marape and the state ministers on all your appointments.

18 My question is directed to the minister for State Enterprises.

As we all know Kokopo is the third city in Papua New Guinea and some of these ministers and members have migrate to Kokopo.
There is an outstanding issue for the city; it is the sewerage system.

I believe it has been raised by my predecessors and through other leaders but I want to ask the Minister again now that we have a big problem of drought in the city.

Can the Minister inform Parliament on when the sewerage project will come to its completion?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER - Honourable Member, I am very sorry to interrupt you.
I am sure all the Members are happy to migrate to Kokopo but whom where you directing your question to, could you mention the name of the Minister so that I can be prepared to ask the Minister to reply.

Mr EREMAN TOBAINING JUNIOR - Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I direct my question to the Minister for State Enterprises.

I believe there was a proper consultation between the provincial government but to date, there is no response for that.
Can the Minister inform the people of Kokopo when we can discuss with PNG Water Board to address this issue?

The construction of the project has been completed and awaits the Water Board to come in so that they can work together with the provincial government and with the Member for Kokopo.

Thank you.

Mr WILLIAM DUMA - Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment as the Deputy Speaker of this Honourable House.
14/02 I thank you to the Member for Kokopo for his good question.

The issue is straight forward, what happened is that the contractor engaged to undertake that very important work for the Kokopo township completed it, but without proper supervision from Water PNG.

As a result, they received many complaints from various stakeholders within the province.

Water PNG engaged an independent consultant engineer to review the work that was done and to 19 provide a report.
The report revealed a number of defects, some serious and some not so serious.

So, it was only a matter of asking the contractor again to either do the work at its own cost or to allow Water PNG to provide a different cost in order to repair the work.

It has been done and I understand Water PNG has been looking at providing more funding to enable the contractor to attend to the problem so that the people of Kokopo can be able to use this very important facility.
I can assure the good Member that Water PNG is very much aware of this problem; the defects have been identified and provision for funding has been made.

Within a matter of months, we should see some work being done in Kokopo.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

No School Materials - Nawae Mr THEO PELGEN – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Before I continue, I would like to congratulate you and your family, they stood behind you through your venture, and also to the people of Markham.
I also want to congratulate our Prime Minister and our Deputy Prime Minister for their unopposed election to maintain their position and also to all members in this House.

We were all mandated by our people and we are all representing our people.

I would like to acknowledge the former Prime Minister Honorable Peter O’Neill and also the Honorable Sir Julius Chan, for their efforts and contribution to this country.

My question goes to the Education Minister.


The policy at the moment is free education, which is a fantastic idea from the O’Neill Government to the Marape Government.

While I was doing my rounds in the elementary areas, yes, we want all our children to be educated, but I noticed in the classes that, they were running out of materials.

The Government is paying but we have children sitting without materials.

This is a waste of Government money.


Therefore, I am asking the Education Minister to look into this to make sure that the children do not run out of materials so every day they go to and be productive.

Thank you very much.

Mr JIMMY UGURO – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I also would like to join the queue in congratulating you on your reappointment as the Deputy Speaker.

At the same time, I acknowledge the reappointment of our Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minster.
I thank the Member for Nawae for this very good question.

The Government has planned to leave no child behind.

The Marape-Rosso Government has committed to upgrade all the schools from elementary to grade 12.

In many parts of our schools in the country, we have 20 issues with the text books, with the school materials and at the same time limited classrooms.

These are the issues that we face throughout the schools in our communities, districts and provinces.
For your case, I will find out from my department and come back to you within this time of Parliament to check which schools have run out of materials so we can advise accordingly.

But it is the Government’s vision to make sure that all schools have books and learning materials so that no one is left behind.
We will phase out to our district and education advisors to make sure, the Government’s visions and the learning outcomes can be achieved throughout the country 15/02 While on this, I would like to challenge our communities and our leaders to please look after the school properties.

Don’t burn down the classrooms.

Don’t rob the schools.

Don’t rob our teachers.

The only government workers who are flagging and outstanding in the communities and rural communities are the teachers.
They are serving our country.

We are here representing our people.

But the most vulnerable people that must be acknowledged for their efforts in educating our country, are the teachers.

You will find teachers in the pockets of the mountains, down and up the rivers.

They are government workers serving out there.

I therefore would like to urge all our citizens to look after all our schools and teachers.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Dr BILLY JOSEPH – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.


Before I ask my questions, I would like to join my colleagues to congratulate you on your unanimous appointment as the Deputy Speaker.

I would like to also congratulate the Prime Minster, Deputy Prime Minister and the 32 cabinet ministers who have been appointed to your portfolios.

I also congratulate the new Opposition Leader, Deputy Opposition Leader and the two female members who were elected into Parliament.
My question will be directed to the Minister for Inter-Government Relations.

This is regarding the splitting of electorates.

I understand the Constitution only allows for only twenty electorates and I represent Nipa-Kutubu.

It is an electorate that is very huge in land mass and we have five LLG’s.

Our other electorate Imbonggu, has three LLG’s and a voting population of 98 000 whilst, we have a voting population of 132 000.
21 In the last Parliament, Imbonggu was one of the electorates chosen to be split into two separate electorates.

I would like to know, what criteria was used to choose Imbonggu electorate instead of Nipa-Kutubu electorate?

Can the Minister clarify this issue to Parliament?

My second question goes to the Prime Minister – Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Honourable Member, you are only allowed to ask questions to one particular Minister.

But if you have other questions, you can still raise it to the same Minister.
Mr SOROI EOE – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Let me also join the queue by congratulating you for your unopposed re-election to the Deputy Speaker’s Chair.

Similarly, let me also congratulate the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister on their re-election and retainment of their respective positions.

I would like to also acknowledge the elevation and appointment of the new Opposition Leader.
And I also congratulate each and everyone of us who have come back and the new MP’s who have come into this House; the 11th House of Parliament.

16/02 The issue of dividing electorates is based on population as we all know and population is basically, how we deliver services to our people.

Often time, we find that electorates are so big and the types of support that is given to the electorate are small.
And therefore, in terms of proper delivery of a service to our people, it is appropriate that we should divide big electorate into small electorate so that services can be delivered.

Yes, we do know that there are some very big electorates still existing and therefore, that is responsibility of our government to look at it and then make decision as to whether or not we can divide those electorates.

The current decision to have 13 new electorates was based on Electoral Boundaries Commission’s Report.
It was approved by last Parliament and therefore, 13 new electorate came into being of which seven were implemented last year.

Resulting in seven new Members of Parliament sitting in this House.

Six are yet to be addressed, hopefully before 2027 election.

Coming back to the issue of what criteria was used by the government to divide, particularly in reference to Imbonggu and Nipa.

I have no idea and will seek advice from my 22 department and then I can respond to the new Member for Nipa-Kutubu.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER – Honourable Members, 20 minutes on the extension of question time has lapsed.

I understand that there are many new members who are interested in asking questions.

I would like to inform the House that, we will give priority to our new members tomorrow to ask questions during the question time.

Our question time has lapsed!


MINISTER FOR TREASURY - 2022 MID-YEAR ECONOMIC AND FISCAL OUTLOOK – PAPER AND STATEMENT – PAPER NOTED Mr IAN LING-STUCKEY (Kavieng – Minister for Treasury) – Mr Speaker, I am both humbled and excited to be standing here again today before the Parliament and the people of Papua New Guinea to present the 2022 Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook update, generally known as the "MYEFO".
I am humbled to be re-elected for the fourth time, three times representing my dear people of Kavieng, and once as the Governor for New Ireland.

The work we do in this Parliament, if done well, is absolutely critical for ensuring our children's future in a better world.

This is what I strive for but it is a daunting and humbling task.

I am excited because I believe the Marape-Rosso Government will be a Government of change and reform to make our country better.
As we and the rest of the world endured the worst global pandemic in a century, we said, we wanted to emerge better and stronger.

As we approached the 50th anniversary of our independence, we must reflect on what has gone well in our country, and where we have not done enough, to meet our people's expectations.

We must do better for our people.

I consider that we can do better for our people.

And with the Marape-Rosso team, I believe that we will do better for our people.
And in this presentation on our MYEFO, I hope to map out some promising signs for our economy, which starts to finally let some rays of economic sunshine return to this great country of ours.

17/02 23 Growth- The world continues to be blown by dangerous winds and torn by rough currents flowing from the lingering impacts of Covid-19 pandemic, and the Ukraine-Russian war.

The latest IMF World Economic outlook released last month titled ‘Gloomy and More Uncertain’.
Global growth prospects have been downgraded by another 0.4 per cent to 3.

2 per cent this year and only 2.9 per cent next year.

The world’s three largest economies, the US, China and Europe are stalling, clearly PNG can be affected by these worrying international developments.

The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook latest growth forecast for the PNG economy are very positive compared to the gloomy outlook for the world.
Indeed, the latest MYEFO figures have the PNG economy growing by its largest kina amount in our history from K82.6 billion in 2020 to K92.6 billion in 2021 and K110.3 billion in 2022.

The K27.6 billion increase in the economy over the last two years is more than double the K12.4 billion increase in the economy during 2014, and 2015 as the PNGLNG Project started up due to the Late Grand Chief’s early work.

There are too many doom Sayers or critics about the PNG economy.
We heard this constantly from the Leader of the PNC during the election.

Talking down the economy so he could talk up his votes but listen to the facts from IMF and Treasury.

The kina value of PNGs economy is growing faster now than at any time in its history.

And we have benefitted from the higher commodity prices.

But we have had to navigate the worst global recession in decades due to the impacts of the Russian -Ukraine war.

The 2022 MYEFO is very good news of how our economy is performing.
Just listen to the facts as a business person.

Listen to the facts of a strong economic performance underway.

Grow in confidence, start increasing investments to support even more production and more jobs.

As a farmer listen to the facts, organize to get the latest gnomes of cocoa, sweet potato and coconut to lift your farms’ productivity backed by PNG connect with access to domestic and international markets.
SMEs, seek out market opportunities to grow your wealth including access to financing through the SME loans, credit guarantee and other government schemes being put in place.

All backed with lower taxation rates for SMEs.

Students study well for a role in the expanding workforce.

Youth; explore the rapidly growing opportunities available through schemes such as labour mobility programs to build your skills.

Send remittance back to your communities and return with a large saving.
A nest egg of funds to invest in housing or your own local business.

The economic future of Papua New Guinea under the Marape-Rosso Government is bright indeed.

24 Inflation- Inflation is the general increase in the cost of goods and services.

So, when the price of bread or vegetables go up, this is inflation.

The Bank of Papua New Guinea estimates that inflation in Papua New Guinea rose to 7.9 per cent to the year end June 2022.
18/02 BPNG has stated that, ‘the imported inflation from higher crude oil and food prices would be largely responsible for domestic inflationary pressures.’ It then goes on to state, ‘over the medium term, inflation is fortunately expected to ease.’ The critical points here are that the inflationary pressures we are facing today are driven primarily by the Ukraine-Russian war and short term external factors.

It is known by economists as ‘a temporary external supply side shock’.
The Government must respond appropriately.

The Marape-Rosso Government understands that inflation is hurting the purchasing power of our families, whether they be rural workers or those in the formal workforce.

The Marape-Rosso Government listened, and continues to listen, and once again, it acted in a caring and responsible way, through our K611 million household assistance package.

This removed taxes on fuel products and cut personal income taxes for an estimated 220,000 workers.
Yes, there were slow implementations and we can continue to do better, but we are also covering the costs of school project fees in 2022 and reducing the prices of flour, rice, tinned fish and ox and palm.

The good news is that the latest BPNG inflation projections have not incorporated the full impacts of our Government's household assistance package.
In the mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook Update; the Treasury estimates that inflation will average 6.2 per cent this year after incorporating the lower cost pressures by removing fuel taxes, assistance to reduce the costs of flour, rice, tinned fish and ox and palm, and lower education costs from the school fee subsidy.

Without these measures, it was considered the inflation rate could have reached 9 or even 10 per cent.

Thank goodness our Government took action.


And very significantly, the MYEFO forecasts that this inflation rate will drop down to 5.6 per cent next year in 2023 and continue declining.

The household assistance package has also been backed by action from the Independent Competition and Consumer Commission (ICCC).

They have been active in inspecting 758 shops throughout the country and then fining companies that have been price gouging with 25 excessive increases in prices.
I hope to table a more detailed statement in the next session of Parliament.

Mr Speaker, in addition to what the Government can do; individuals, our own people, can also act to lower pressures on their household budgets.

For example, according to the BPNG, the largest increase over the last 12 months was in the ‘alcoholic beverages, tobacco and betelnut’ expenditure group with a 13.2 per cent inflation.
Looking at this inflation fact, one way many individuals, our people, can act to lower the impact of inflation on them is, less drinking, less smoking and less betelnut.

That is good for lowering cost of living pressures, and probably good for your health outcomes, probably good even on issues such as domestic violence, and even good on family budgets.

Let the Government and families work on this challenge together.
19/02 Revenues Mr Speaker, I am very pleased that the MYEFO also contains very good news about the strength of revenue growth.

When I presented the 2022 Budget, there were howls from the Opposition claiming that the revenue targets were unachievable.

In my budget presentations, I went into considerable detail setting out why I considered that revenues could be lifted from K13,674.5 million in 2021 up to K16,190.2 million predicted for 2022, an increase of 18.0 per cent.

We believed that it could be done.


The good MYEFO news is that, not only are we likely to achieve that ambitious revenue target, we are likely to exceed it by K875.8 million.

Mr Deputy Speaker, instead of revenues of K16,190.2 million, the MYEFO now forecasts an increase to K17,066.0 million.

This represents a 23.1 per cent increase on revenue outcomes in 2021.

Despite the good news, we need also to be careful.


PNG's economy is subject to international commodity prices - we are what is known by economists as a "price-taker" in international markets.

When oil shoots up due to extraordinary circumstances such as the Ukraine-Russian war, revenues to the PNG economy increase substantially.

However, what goes up must come down.

Currently, the international price of oil is actually below the level at the start of the Ukraine-Russian war.
We may in fact have collected too much tax in some areas, and we need to allow for this in our forecasts.

26 Overall, we estimate that the international commodity price boom has lifted our resource revenues by K2,562 million.

We estimate revenue increases in other areas of K455 million, primarily due to a very large Dividend With-holding tax collection from ANZ.

Off-setting these increases are estimated tax revenue losses of K628 million.
Some revenue areas are not performing well even after allowing for the Household Assistance package, with GST collections down by an estimated K365 million and Excise collections down by K290 million.

In addition, there have been substantial reductions in non-tax revenues of K770 million, mainly flowing because we are still to introduce a new non-tax revenues Bill.

Overall, the bottom line is an increase in revenues of K875.8 million and this is good news.
Expenditures Mr Speaker, I will reserve detail on MYEFO expenditures when presenting the 2022 Supplementary Budget tomorrow.

Suffice to say that we have identified a range of expenditure pressures, but we are balancing these to ensure that they do not exceed the additional expected revenues so there is no change in the budget deficit.

Budget Deficit and Debt The Marape-Rosso Government is committed to on-going budget repair.
In 2021, the MYEFO maintained the expected budget deficit outcome set out in the 2021 Budget.

The Opposition and even some international commentators doubted that we could deliver.

20/02 However, as demonstrated in the 2021 Final Budget Outcome (FBO), the Marape Government over-performed with a final budget deficit nearly K300 million lower than first forecast.

For 2022, the MYEFO once again maintains the same forecast for the budget deficit as in the 2022 Budget.
The additional revenues of K875.8 million are carefully balanced with K875.8 million of identified additional expenditure pressures.

Once again, we are making the prudent within year adjustments to stay on track for budget repair.

I expect that the 2022 FBO will demonstrate once again our performance on delivering our budget repair credentials.

Mr Speaker, by keeping the same level of budget deficit, it means that we also keep the same estimated debt level.
However, our very strong increase in the economy means that our debt to GDP ratio drops very significantly.

PNG's debt to GDP ratio in 2022 will now fall from 53.3 per cent down to 49.1 per cent.

This is just great news.

This debt to GDP ratio is even lower than the 51.6 per cent in 2021.

27 We are managing debt pressures.

And our 13-year fiscal plan has a clear map to lower debt even further.
In conclusion, Mr Speaker, I have covered the key economic updates for our country contained in the MYEFO which has been released on the Treasury website.

Mr Speaker, in summary, we are on track for our 13-year budget repair and reconstruction program.
As I have always stated on this Floor without apology from when I commenced the job as Treasurer 3 years ago, it was going to take us many years to get out of the debt, deficit, jobs and incomes holes left by the economic mismanagement of the former Government.
While continuing with key service delivery funding and selective increases in critical areas such as infrastructures, health, education and law and order, we are growing the revenues fast enough to return us to a budget surplus by 2027 as our target date.

And once we have the budget surplus, we are then in a position to make choices as to how much to use on repaying debt, or alternatively, how much more to invest in our human and physical capital resources to support our future growth.
Mr Speaker, I commend the 2022 MYEFO to the Parliament.

Thank you.

Motion (by Mr Don Polye) agreed to – That Parliament take note of the paper.

Mr DON POLYE (Kandep - Minister for Higher Education, Research, Science, Technology and Sports) - Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I will leave the present risk to another time.

I will raise some supporting comments on the MYEFO report by the Treasurer on behalf of the Marape-Rosso Government.
There were two times that I have experienced micro-economic stability of such statistics reported on this Floor of Parliament.

The first was when the National Alliance government came into office under the late Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare in which the Honourable Prime Minister James Marape was part of that government.

The Treasurer and few of us on this side and I think the leader of the URP parti too was in that government.
Due to the prudent performance put up by the team at that time, Mr Speaker, at a 7-year period, we did see country achieving micro-economic stability.

21/02 Micro economic stability is making sure the parameters that you have heard, those the Honorable Treasurer outlined in his report, these statistics must be right before you look at 28 micro level, on the ground level when you deliver services to your electorate or to the people.

If the micro-economics are not in order, it is very difficult to deliver.
I would like to ask this House and the people of this country to take note of this statement by the know that the Marape- Rosso Government because it is good news for Papua New Guinea after a long term of down turn in micro-economics, the Treasurer has justified.

Under the National Alliance, under the coalition government that we were part of almost 70 to 80 per cent of the team on this side, those of us existing, we were part of that Government too.
I didn’t mention that the Honorable Prime Minister was part of the Government and so was the Treasurer.

We achieved that micro-economic stability.

We have had our debt rising for some time and there were comments that people made and people are not wrong, they were right in saying we have to control our debts and so forth.

Look at the key factors, the debt to GDP has reduced from 53 per cent down to 49 per cent, we should be proud of this.
There is a lot of work that we will continue to do as a Government, as a Parliament, but this key indicator is very positive, especially after you’ve seen the debt rising for some time.

This is a deliberate work done by this Government in some of the strategies employed as outlined in the statement.

That’s a very positive achievement.

The second positive achievement is the additional revenues; the revenues of K800 million coming in surplus.

We have never experienced that.


Now is the first time we are seeing this after probably 10 years or so.

We are seeing surplus coming into the country, that’s another positive achievement.

It adds on to your revenue and shows prudent management.

This shows that you have worked well and that you are contributing to the revenue coming in but you also need to have a conducive environment within the domestic economy to attract that to have it safely brought into the country.
At the same time, it puts a lot of pressure on where we spend that money and the Treasurer has outlined very prudently.

He’s added a lot of pressure to where we should put that money, but where we put it should boost economic growth.

Because from this report you see that when you grow the economy, your debt GDP ratio reduces.

The third key point Mr Speaker is to look at consistency in performance.

A Government’s consistent performance in economy is very important.
Now this Government under the Honorable Prime Minister came into office three years ago, people were criticizing the Government and saying that look you will not deliver but as you see in this report, the deficit has reduced from something really big to almost 300 million that’s a very positive outcome.

So the performance by this Government is very consistent, its so consistent in reducing debt.

Making sure that you walk on that same path to deliver a balanced budget and not a deficit 29 budget.
The consistency is very important Mr Deputy Speaker and it is delivered in this Government.

The next is the growth of GDP, there is a K10 billion in GDP growth, Mr Deputy Speaker.

It took us seven years or so to grow the GDP starting in 2001, like I alluded to earlier, but here it took two to three years, the Marape Government has done extremely well.

And you see the GDP growing.

The size of the country’s wealth is growing.

But how you manage that is another issue.


How the MP’s go down to their districts and manage it relies entirely on them and the leadership they provide.

But what we see overall is very positive.

We should not worry about inflation, and the Governor of East Sepik said something very sensible yesterday.

And I also believe that inflation is very temporary.

I don’t think we will live in this inflation for a long time it depends on the money we spend on expanding our production base.
The Prime Minister said in his statement that to go into manufacturing and down-stream processing.

That’s how we can address that.

Any monitory policy or fiscal policy that the Government implements is very temporary but a permanent solution is increasing our supply base moving into to stream processing.

We are moving in that direction.

But, I see a lot of people making a lot of negative comments on little things that affect them and not doing what they are supposed to be doing to look after themselves.
For instance, if you can’t buy a packet of rice if it’s very expensive, you can grow kaukau.

I do not see it as a big problem.

This can be solved.

22/02 Mr Deputy Speaker, let me go to the speeches I heard yesterday; the main speeches.

I think that summarises this situation.

His Excellency was very specific and precise on the issues which the Prime Minister also covered in his last Parliament speech.
The Prime Minister went down comprehensively, as to how he will strategise what he will do and what he had done to improve the country for betterment.

His Excellency reiterated the same point.

Exactly the same point.

The Prime Minister responded by giving His Excellency answers, on what he will be doing and his instructions to ministers regarding their performances to achieving their objectives.

Mr Deputy Speaker, it is spot on; spot on.

The Opposition Leader’s comments were not different.
They were not polarised to the statement made by the Prime Minister.

In fact, the opposition supports the Prime Minister.

His statement was subservient; very relevant and consistent to the government’s position.

30 Mr Deputy Speaker, what we see here is a very positive outlook.

We must see the future and the present with a positive outlook based on this macroeconomic stability that the Marape- Rosso Government has achieved.

Let us be positive, look forward and do what we can do to achieve the best.
In conclusion, so much negative comments were made regarding the 2022 National General Election.

I would like to appeal to all of us that, the challenges that we faced in the elections were only localised to a few places.

But in general, the election in this country was of the usual integrity.

This was standard and we are on this Floor of Parliament; that is where there is an 11th Parliament.

It was a good election.

We have to correct those challenges but the challenges were very localised.
In general, the election was good.

Let us move forward into the future.

Let us work together as one House.

I was happy with the statement by the Honourable Leader of the Opposition and it is very consistent to the macro-economic stability, the MYEFO report presented by the Treasurer today.

Mr Deputy Speaker, what I am seeing is a different Parliament and a different culture of politics.

What I am seeing is a Parliament more focused on the people’s affairs.
Of course, the past Parliaments had some good achievements like I alluded earlier on in my statement but, this one will be much better with the value added by the new MPs.

These new MPs from both sides of the House have credibility; a lot of value, businessman, professionals, with degrees doubled and the two women with credibility’s and merits.

So, we have a good House on this Floor.

I can see that we will deliver.

Let us build on from what the Marape-Rosso Government achieved.
We have this MYEFO report and let us have a good Budget in November of this year and let us see in the next five years, a good economic outcome for Papua New Guinea.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr ALLAN BIRD (East Sepik) – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

First of all, let me take this opportunity to thank my people of East Sepik for a very resounding mandate that deeply humbles me.

I would like to state that so to get it incorporated in the Hansard.
Secondly, I congratulate you on your re-election as the Deputy Speaker.

You were more than capable and in the last term and you earned our respect and hence, we have restored you to that position, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Whilst commenting on this remarkable performance in the economy as reported by our Treasurer, first of all, I wanted to commend the Prime Minister.
31 23/02 There was a time where we had deep discussions with the Pangu Government in order to install the Treasurer, the Member for New Ireland, the Honourable Ian Ling-Stuckey into the position, he still holds today.

Part of the reasons, we did that and we move from the opposition benches was to try and help repair the economy.
Looking back three years later, going into the fourth year now, we can see some improvement which is very encouraging and therefore I wanted to place that on record that I was one of those who would argue with the Treasurer.

In fact, we did have an argument last week on the economy as usual, to try to keep him honest.

But I have to say, I am impressed with this report.

Obviously, when GDP grows, the debt to GDP ratio will come down.
When prices rise for global commodities it will increase our revenues and we have seen it here.

So, we are depending on global forces to help float our ship as it is.

I just wanted to caution us because we did not anticipate the Ukraine-Russian war.

Many people in the global community expected it to last two months but I think it’s going up to eight months now.

It’s very difficult to predict how your economy is going to react to global forces.
We have been quite lucky that we had resources that were required by other countries and the value of those resources increased.

Simply because there were many countries that took out embargoes, trade actions against Russia, particularly in the energy space and that increased our earnings as a result.

Had we not had any oil or particularly gas, we would not be seeing this positive results in this Report by the Treasurer.

Yesterday, I read that the Taiwanese open fire on Chinese drones.
Eight months ago, we saw similar things between the Russians and Ukrainians, it escalated into a war.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the entire world is living in extremely perilous times.

If Taiwan and China do go to war, we know that it will drag the US into that space as well.

We are just recovering from the effects of a global pandemic which affected us greatly.

We are now experiencing the effects of the Ukraine-Russian war and there is a possibility that China and Taiwan might do the same.
Let me remind this House that China is a very significant trading partner of Papua New Guinea.

Let me also remind this House that the ship that carry our LNG produce, they travel past Taiwan to get to the markets, just so that we are aware.

I would like to request the Treasurer to ask our economists in the Treasury Department to do a deep dive and to come and inform perhaps Cabinet and even this House.
So that our 32 people can know that there are smart people who are running this country and who are making sure that we are keeping an eye out for things that happen on the horizons that will affect us.

Mr Deputy Speaker, my concerns dwell around the significant tax revenue losses of about K628 million.

The news would have been even better in terms of the surplus, had we not had significant revenue losses as well.
I would ask the Treasurer, when he presents the Supplementary Budget later this week to perhaps inform all of us as to the reasons why there has been a significant drop in revenues.

24/02 I note that it is in the GST collections and it is in excise, so perhaps a deep dive into some analysis to inform the House as to whether this is a one-off occurrence or whether it is an indicative of further problems down the track that we may need to be aware of and perhaps take some action to remedy it going forward.
And as the Budget proper is approaching and I know that there are advisors from Treasury listening in on this debate, and I would like to implore our government to seriously look at biofuel.

We need some cushioning from the effects of the global economy, we cannot continue to be knocked about in the international ocean of economies because we are small and we do not take the actions to try to mitigate some of the impacts of the global economy on us.
Fuel and energy are becoming very serious security issues for many countries and we have no excuse.

In 2007, I owned a coconut plantation and for two years I made my own diesel.

There are many Papua New Guineans in Bougainville who also make their own diesel fuel from time to time.

It is simple a technology as the first engines designed to run on diesel were designed to run on vegetable oil, not fossil fuel.
The abundance of fuel particularly fossil fuel and oil has made people lazy and everyone is using them and become dependent.

Mr Deputy Speaker, Papua New Guinea has one of the best climates for growing crops and we are already one of the top palm oil producers in the world.

For those who may not know, palm oil can be converted to bio-diesel.

There are other oil plants that can grow well in our country that which can be used for fuel.
Our government needs to put aside some money in the next budget so that we can partner with the private sector and start to move towards energy security.

There are too many Papua New Guineans that depend on diesel engines and there too many that depend on petrol engines especially our coastal people who have outboard motors.

Some from the Treasurer’s province, as well as in my province use outboard motors.
Rather than just us getting a report of a very good performance in the economy that was mostly 33 contributed from the rising commodity prices we need to look further and we need to start building some resilience into our local economy.

I thank the Member for Kandep for his contribution to something I said yesterday and also said eight months ago.

We must produce more locally.

Local production insulates us and reduces the effect of imported inflation.

I think it is important that we understand this.


With that, I thank the House.

Mr JOSEPH LELANG (Kandrian-Gloucester) – Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to join the debate on the MYEFO presented by the Honourable Treasurer.

25/02 Mr Speaker, I am thankful that the Honourable Treasurer has presented the MYEFO report.

I was hoping that he would also present the final budget output report of 2021.
That would have given us an understanding of the actual performance and output of our budget performance and the economy last year.

That would provide the basis for the MYEFO so that we can draw some references looking forward.

Thought, I would just mention that in passing.

We do agree and acknowledge, Mr Deputy Speaker, that Papua New Guinea is affected by what is happening in the world’s economy and markets.
The broadening of price pressures and the rise in cost structures from the war in Ukraine, the disruptions to the global supply chains caused by the Covid-19 pandemic; these fuel shipping costs around the world and it fuels both food and fuel costs also, as we are an import dependent nation.

Mr Deputy Speaker, on this side of the House, we are suggesting that we need to look at how we can address this imported inflation.
And whilst, we appreciate the Treasurer’s statement and the paper he presented today, it must be clear that these uncertainties, if not addressed quickly, may affect and slow our growth going forward.

Mr Deputy Speaker, allow me to caution that the raising of revenue continues to remain critical to both the macro – economy stability and to the management and the sustainability of our public finances and the budget.

We have to be wary that we may get ourselves caught in a debt-trap.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to mention that as our population continues to increase, we are also seeing a corresponding increase in the demands for basic public goods and services around our nation.

This will put a lot of pressure on the expenditure side of our budget in moving forward.

34 And, if our revenue is not rising as much as we would have wanted, if it’s not growing, that will lead us to borrow in order to meet those increase in population pressures and demand for basic goods and services.
This is the debt-trap that I’m referring to.

It is very critical and we must focus on revenue.

We must grow our revenue.

If we do not do that, we will get caught up.

We just want to caution that while we appreciate the performance in the first half of this year, we just want to contribute particularly towards this, as a way forward.

Mr Deputy Speaker, we also need specific ministers to address the current inflation, particularly in the country especially with the cost of food and fuel.
For fuel costs, in regards to the use of motorised dinghies and vehicles.

Mr Deputy Speaker, prices for basic commodities have doubled and tripled in some areas.

For example; salt used to be sold for K2, now it’s selling for K4.80.

Ox and palm price has now gone up to K20.

The price of 20-kilogram rice is now around K289 in Kira, in the remote areas of Northern Province.

In West New Britain Province, a 10-kilogram bag of rice costs almost K72.

The prices differ in different areas.


These are real issues and the longer we don’t address that; core inflation will increase.

This is not the actual inflation, but core inflation.

It does not come down; it only goes up.

Core inflation occurs after a certain period of time, if the current issues are not addressed and brought down quickly.

That is why we would like to see some very specific measures and at least some time frame that we can expect these prices to start dropping.
And also, for our people to know that the high cost structure, including fuel and food prices will be addressed as part of the way forward, as part of the Government’s economic plans and strategies.

That is all, thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr RICHARD MARU (Yangoru-Saussia - Minister for International Trade and Investment) – Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I want to start by offering my highest commendation to the Prime Minister and his Government for the very good report we just received from the Treasurer.

It is really heartening to see the economy coming around and to see the surplus.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I have a few comments to make in relation to the report.

35 26/02 I want to start by offering my highest recommendation to the Prime Minister and his Government for this very good report we just received from the Treasurer today.
It’s really heartening to see the economy coming around and see the surplus.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I have few comments to make in relation to the report.

This year because of the increase in gold prices, many of us expect the revenue and the mining companies likely here, to make record profits and pay record taxes.

For a long time, they have been declaring loses after loses.
So, I would like to encourage the Treasurer and his team to put in place a specific task force team to look at such companies, to find out why they have been recording loses after loses.

We cannot accept the tax revenue lower than we expected, therefore, we now have to scrutinize this companies.

I think there are still a lot of leaks so I want to encourage the Treasurer to put in place a team to investigate this major resource companies and the levels of taxes they are paying.
This is one issue we need to focus on and if need be, bring in global experts to come in and look at the amount of revenue we are receiving from this companies.

The next one I want to raise is the increase in nickel prices and the record profits, I would assume Ramu Nickel has been making more over the last few years.

This is a company that is not paying taxes because of an Agreement they had with the Government when they commenced operation.
This company should be paying taxes to this country but its not.

The Madang District and the Rai Coast District are losing out on significant tax credit because it’s not paying taxes to the State.

It is about time we scrutinize this company and relook at the agreement and see how we can get them to start paying corporate taxes.

We need to ensure that this big companies start to pay corporate taxes.
They operate in a District which is least developed in this country and yet they are making so much money and getting away with it.

This has to stop now and they need to start paying and contribute to the socio-economic development of the provinces and the districts they operate in.

The next comment I want to make is on the Credit Guarantee Scheme, but before I do so, I commend the Prime Minister and his Government for recently launching this scheme.
Since the launch, SMEs don’t know about the Credit Guarantee Corporation, how they can get guarantees to go into businesses, to secure loans, no one seems to know where the office is and, who are the management of the Credit Guarantee Corporation, and its now four to five months.

This is an important driver for SME sector growth.

It’s so quiet about the establishment of this important institution and the one who can underpin the growth of the SME sector in PNG.
36 I will give you an example in Malaysia; the Credit Guarantee Corporation is the main driver of SME growth.

They provide guarantees for over $6 billion in loans to the SME sector.

So, we should be focusing on growing this corporation and provide services to the SME sector in using it to drive the sector growth.

The other aspects that I found in Malaysia was the Commercial Banks and Super Funds were the major investors in the Credit Guarantee Corporation.
And this is one thing I want the Treasurer to consider.

There is so much money being kept by the Super Funds, however, why can’t they invest in the Credit Guarantee Corporation and make guarantees available to the SME sector to grow the economy and stimulate economic growth.

The K50 million allocated by the Government is a small start but it’s not adequate.

The demands for loan by the SME sector in this country reaches over K500 million a year.
So, we need more than K50 million and that doesn’t have to come from the Government, but the banks and the financial institutions, including the Super Funds.

They need to put money to underpin the growth of our economy, and stimulate growth.

And not just investing and save investments.

Time is up now for them to rise up and invest in this sector.
So, I would like to encourage the Treasurer to look at innovative ways to stimulate economic growth, by growing taxes, GST and one of them is to grow the size of the guarantees available to SME sector.

These are my comments.

Thankyou Mr Deputy Speaker.

27/02 Mr JAMES MARAPE (Tari-Pori - Prime Minister) - Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I know some of you want to make further comments.

I see our good Governor for Morobe who is standing up.
If there is a moment after I make my speech or tomorrow, we can continue on this good debate on the statement made by our Treasurer.

At the macro level, the story of our country is not bad.

At the macro level, our country has been travelling on a positive road thus far.

In 1975, our economy an economy under K5 billion.

If I travel through time and into 2011, our economy was a K44.4 billion; in 2018 it was a K79.6 billion.
Let me commend our Treasurer; against many criticisms, he had ensured our short-term measures to keep the MV PNG floating in tough waters is paying off.

In the last three years, from a K79.6 billion GDP size that we took over from in 2018; today IMF, based on their own independent assessment in March, released a focussed statement, that by the end of this year our economy would be a K109 billion.
37 Today in our media economic fiscal review, the Treasurer is boasting that we would have gone past K110 billion economy size of what many labelled as fragile.

Let me say that it is fragile but nonetheless, it is moving.

The thermometer in as far as the economy is concerned is moving.

Many parts of planet earth have not moved in the manner we have moved.

They have stagnant or regressed but we have posted at the macro level.

This is a good story.


However, Mr Deputy Speaker, in commending the Opposition leader, he did not come out firing like Opposition Leaders do; he had substance in his presentation yesterday.

While he spoke from his worldview, he offered support and constructive criticism.

This is what this Parliament needs.

This is what our country needs, because we are in this ship together.

If the MV PNG sinks, we will all sink.


If the MV PNG floats to a safe destination, we will all enjoy the benefit of a safer economic and social destination.

We are here today Mr Deputy Speaker, whilst the Treasurer is good; I want to assure this House that we will not just be benefiting from an upsize of a good oil, gold or mineral price.

Hard work is incumbent on each and every one of us.

It starts with us here in this House, wherever you come from, in your districts or provinces.
Make it become economic contributors to our nation.

Sustainability to such gain is important; we much entrance these by hard work and not be dependent on the stereotype.

For the last 30 years, our resources graced us but we left out the fundamentals of our economy, where our people are: the forestry, the fisheries the agriculture where every day Papua New Guineans, the 80 per cent, who are still locked in their enclaves of poverty and rural-left-behinds; these ones we have not brought along with us.
We banked on the oil and gas, when prices dropped, we all suffered.

Mr Treasurer, the fundamentals are still weak, that is why our government is focussed on ensuring we transfer the wealth to the rest of our country, where the coffee, copra, vanilla have been left behind and not attended to.
28/02 Whether cocoa has not been attended to, whether vanilla which fetches good price are not really acted upon, whether rural based industries including fisheries and forestry for our people who own or who have been living in this forest since our ancestors first travelled in this beautiful land.

The K10 billion economy must not give us a false sense of security.

Hard work starts with each and every one of us.


Short term measures, Mr Deputy Speaker, will mean that our Government will work to bring Porgera at the very earliest.

With this progress let me say thank 38 you very much to Governor of Enga who has worked hard.

Let me apologize for what seems to be a delay, but we have not abandoned the cost.

The delay was not unnecessary; we want to tick that needs to be ticked or corrected.
So that the 51 per cent we are gaining from the new Porgera actually has a cash translation to our economy to our province, to our land owners, and to the National Government Beneficiary Holder Kumul Minerals.

Porgera will be worked on at the very earliest.

We have successfully now sequenced together with P’nyang LNG which will run at the back of the Papua LNG Construction instead of having four-year construction economy, as we experienced in PNG LNG from 2011 and 2013.
We will have now sequenced both Papua and P’nyang into an 8-year extended construction economy.

That will mean, the windfall coming in as a result of construction sector, money or Forex that comes in, will run from 2023 right up to 2031.

We will make it a concerted effort to consult all landowners in these three provinces at the very earliest; Gulf, Western and Enga province.

The smaller Pascha Project will be reactivated.

It is the easiest lowest hanging fruit off shore.


Hopefully that will be concluded at the very earliest and the much talked about Wafi- Golpu, I am very keen to work with the Morobe Provincial Government, the Governor, the Honorable Luther Wenge is not new to these discussions, reserving provinces and our people’s right but in the context for gaining more for our country and dealing fairly with our investors; for them to make a fair return on the investment.
These five projects will now be progressed in the next ten years.

They give us the window that economy will still pass K200 billion in the next 7-10 years.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to assure the country that we are not fools running this country.
Even the last three tough years, at short term measures, that included bringing low interest free, US Dollar denominated lendings, the Japanese 280 million us dollar that didn’t come through a second or third party directly from Japanese Bank into our Central Bank.

280 million US dollar that had 0.01 interest.

With a five-year grace period, meaning we will start repaying in 2028 onwards.
Unlike the Credit Swiss Loan that was borrowed when I was Finance Minister under different Treasurer’s hand and different Prime Minister’s watch.

Let me explain a little about the Credit Swiss Loan; when you loan 200 million dollars you must repay it back within two years at an interest charge of 7.7 percent without any grace period.

The last three years, the Treasurer knew we were going through tough times, so when we took office in 2019, we did a holistic due diligence in checking our debts.
At the time when we received it.

Our debts were at K39 billion plus.

The last two to three years we went on the road to get rid of the debts and 39 also to start again and maintain composure of the economy.

We went onto soft borrowing and we achieved two things.

Retired the expensive debts that we carried in a book, including the Credit Swiss as an example in 2016 or 2017 that needed to be repaid and our Government repaid fully in the last two years.
We have some debts but on a fiscal consolidation pathway.

This means that by 2027 we want to target to hit surplus.

And today’s announcement by the Treasurer on modest positive indication a K300 million under spent last year that further consolidates our fiscal pathway.

The report that treasurer presented to us today indicates to us that we are discipline.

We are trying our very best to stick to the Budget.
We’re focused on the right areas to grow economy and giving funds where it needs to be given in as far as our budgets are concerned.

If you travel this part by 2027, we should be in a surplus if not earlier.

As the Treasurer mentioned last year, we have a 13-year window to grow economy and hopefully in the mid thirties if not earlier we should have repaid our total sovereign debt and our country would be on its way to consolidated into an economic strength.
29/02 I just want to appeal to our people, the immediate short-term gap that needs to be filled has been filled effectively by the Treasurer in the last three years.

The hard work starts today.

When you are talking about basic services out there for example; health care, school, law and order does not come free.

We have to look for funds to cater for these services to operate.

The economy and our people must not free-ride going forward.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I am a Prime Minister who wants to discourage free-riding.

The entire country must contribute to the growth of our country.

As we contribute, we then sit on the table bidding for our entitlements.

That is what we call equity; you contribute then you receive.

Our government is willing now for medium-term, as we work the short-term to get the five mining; oil and gas projects, Porgera, P’nyang, Pasca, Papua and Wafi-Golpu.

I call them the four ‘P’s’ and one ‘W’.


The next phase now is for all of us to go strong into mobilising and engaging in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and other businesses.

I was happy this morning, when the Minister for Immigration and Labour stood firm and said that, he will tidy that space to reserve business for Papua New Guineans.

Those who are guests in our country, can fill up the blanks where our people can’t fill.

They must work in those space.


We do not have the capacity but as they work, they will fill in the gaps to train the 40 next Papua New Guineans online to come into those sectors and spaces.

We will tidy those nuts and bolts but right now, I would like to encourage and support the Treasurer’s statement which points to us that, these are short-term measures.

Also exacerbated by the improved mineral, oil and gas price that see us posting K800 million plus.
Let us earn the money ourselves and not to depend on oil and gas.

Earning money ourselves is really in the agriculture sector, forestry and fisheries.

We are willing to put our money where our mouth is.

For the last three years, if we have funded K200 million in 2020 and 2021 to support SME’s, we are willing to go down this path to grow our rural base economy.
I would like to inform every member of Parliament not to be continually deceived by gold, oil and gas being an answer to our countries economic need.

Let us work the hard yard and make it happen for our sustainable economy now and into the future.

Mr Treasurer, lets diverse our economy, Thank you very much.

Motion – That the question be now put – agreed to.

Motion – That the Parliament take note of the paper – agreed to.

Paper noted.
Paper noted.

ADJOURNMENT Motion (by Mr Jelta Wong) agreed to – That Parliament do now adjourn.

The Parliament adjourned at 1.05 p.m. 41