PNG Govt Violates Pandemic Emergency Laws - Marape must answer questions

Former PNG prime minister and the  Leader of the People’s National Congress Party, Peter O’Neill,  has demanded the government come clean and reveal if the Asian Development Bank (ADB)

has dramatically scaled back financial support to Papua New Guinea.

“Why has no funding been received by the government from the ADB’s Partial Credit Guarantee facility this year as programmed in the 2020 Budget, and has this program  funding now been cancelled outright?” Mr. O’Neill asked.

“At a time when James Marape has announced he will no longer attend public events,  including media conferences, this is a new economic crisis and he must explain this latest failure.

“While the Treasurer said recently that the ADB was slashing this money from US$300 million to US$190 million, it appears that this has now been cut to zero.

“Concerns have been voiced in the Bank headquarters that the ADB does not want to  provide guarantees to enable the Marape Administration to access funds.

“Instead, the ADB has been proposing an arrangement through the IMF with very stringent conditions imposed on the government. This includes a stipulation that funding  would only be used for COVID-19 projects, and Ling-Stuckey would be banned from using  these funds to support the 2020 budget.

“This also means that Marape and Ling-Stuckey now have no idea on how they will find

money for the government’s programmed 2020 budget financing.

“This money is needed to fund the public service, schools, hospitals and every other  essential service. Failure to identify funds for these essential services will lead to a  government shut-down in the coming months.”  Mr. O’Neill said the sad condition of State finances, and the downturn in the economy

under the Marape Administration, began well before the Coronavirus and is the result of

incompetence.

“Following the string of failures in just one year, including the cancellation of major  resource project negotiations and the nationalisation of the Porgera mine, the global  investment community has lost confidence in the Marape-Steven Government  “This was after declaring to the global economy that PNG is broke when Ling-Stuckey  asked for IMF Rapid Credit funding and debt payment suspension. Now there are no further options for commercial borrowing within PNG or externally, and Marape has

become completely dependent on the IMF.

“The only way to fix this worst economic situation in our history is for the Parliament to

elect government leadership that has management capability and can carry the

confidence of the global economy to bring much-needed investment and capital back into

Papua New Guinea.”

Statement

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PNG Govt Violates Pandemic Emergency Laws - Marape must answer questions