2017 PNG National budget to be further cut

There will be further cuts to the 2017 national budget.
This will be made known in November's budget session of Parliament.
Secretary for Treasury Department, Dairi Vele, confirmed the government's plan on the budget cuts to NBC News yesterday.
Mr. Vele says, the budget cuts are due to over spending in previous years.
"Yes, over the last four years we've been explaining that we've been borrowing money and we've been spending more that we earn.
"I showed some slides about the prices of oil and gold and copper, coffee, copra, oil palm. They've been coming down as well.
"We are not earning as much as we thought would be earning.
"So over the last 4 years the budget has been made smaller and smaller and smaller. And now the budget will be a little bit smaller again.
"So what we are trying to do is to make sure that we don't keep borrowing beyond our means.
"I try to say that yumi olgeta gat wanbel tasol ah? So skel blo bel blo yumi is probably what the budget of 2017 is going to be".
Secretary Vele however assures, there won't be any cuts to key priority areas including Health, Education and Law and Order.
Prime Minister Peter ONeill says, despite the financial situation PNG is faced with, due to global commodity prices, the government remains focused in its budget.
Mr. O'Neill says, the government is continuing to service key priority areas includes, Health, Education Infrastructure and Law and Order.
The Prime Minister pointed out that, the government may fail in other areas but is strategizing to maintain the country's economy.
"We are not as bad as many other countries in the world.
"There's some things that we cannot control like commodity prices but we can manage our budget. We can manage our spending. We can manage what we have used.
"So we have a huge deficit in 2012 when we came into government but it has been a deliberate strategy where we are trying to reduce the deficit levels from almost close to 5% down to a balanced budget in 2018 or 2019.
"We are now on target. Our debt levels are very much within the Fiscal Responsibilities Act. Our GDP has gradually dobubled over for the last 5 to 6 years".
Prime Minister O'Neill was speaking at the opening of a three day Consultative Implementation and Monitoring Council forum in Port Moresby yesterday.

NBC News