PNG Opposition Questions Budget Claims as Kina Slides and Living Costs Rise

Papua New Guinea’s Opposition Leader, Hon. James Nomane, has challenged the government’s budget performance, pointing to what he described as worsening economic realities faced by ordinary citizens across PNG.

Speaking in reference to a Parliament session held in November 2025, Mr Nomane recalled the Prime Minister’s strong defence of the government’s financial management, which centred on official figures presented during the debate on the national budget.

The blue line in the chart is the value of the Kina dropping in last 5 years and worsened by the opaque "crawl-peg" depreciation strategy of the Treasurer, and the green line is the reciprocally increasing cost-of-living driven by Kina devaluation and PNG's import dependence. [graph supplied]

According to Mr Nomane, those figures tell a very different story when examined against the actual performance of the economy over the past five years, particularly the steady fall of the Kina and the rising cost of basic goods.

He said data trends show the value of the Kina continuing to weaken year after year, a situation made worse by the Treasurer’s crawl-peg depreciation policy, which has reduced purchasing power and increased the cost of imported goods.

At the same time, PNG’s heavy reliance on imports has pushed living expenses higher, placing pressure on households while wages remain largely unchanged, effectively making the cost of living climb in direct response to currency depreciation.

Mr Nomane said this economic outcome should be viewed as the real measure of the government’s performance over the past five years, arguing that the country has lost valuable time despite strong global prices for PNG’s export commodities.

He added that the government’s borrowing of more than K65 billion during this period would continue to burden future generations, long after current leaders have left office, insisting that “namba no save giaman!”