O’Neill hiding behind smokescreen over state of PNG’s economy: Mekere

Press Release

Former Finance Minister Sir Mekere Morauta is calling on Prime Minister Peter O’Neill not to create a smokescreen to hide the true state of the economy.

In a media statement, Sir Mekere said O’Neill should come out and tell the truth about public finances and his mismanagement of them.

Sir Mekere said O’Neill’s boast about the 9 percent annual GDP growth were both wrong and misleading.

“Papua New Guinea’s annual GDP growth is not 9 percent per annum, as he says. Nor is GDP growth alone the answer to our problems, as he imagines.

“People do not eat GDP. We consume the goods and services that we have converted from GDP, and this is what we are lacking.”

Sir Mekere, a former  finance minister, said O’Neill inherited a strong GDP growth but had failed to convert it into any meaningful level of new goods and services.

“O’Neill inherited a strong economy, growing by 11.1 percent in 2011, 8 percent in 2012 and 5 percent in 2013. But since then, his short-sighted and reckless fiscal practices have wasted that advantage,” Sir Mekere said.

“Papua New Guinea has got nothing to show from that strong growth and the riches flowing from the start of production of PNG LNG, apart from a few unproductive showpiece projects in Port Moresby, and lavish hosting of international conferences attracting people like the dictator Robert Mugabe.”