THE INCOMPLETE BUDGET - Opposition outlines flaws in 2015 Budget


By DR ALAN MARAT MP

In Tuesday’s Budget Session, which was supposed to commence at 2pm, Members of Parliament were kept waiting in the chamber until 4pm. Finance Minister, Tari-Pori MP, Hon. James Marape, followed by the Treasury Minister, Hon. Patrick Pruaitch, walked in. Thereafter the Speaker entered and Parliament commenced meeting.

When the Treasurer started delivering his Budget Speech, the Opposition Members had not yet received any budget documentation, despite the speech being on ‘the budget’ ( money plan) for 2015. A little while later copies of the Treasurer’s budget speech were handed out followed by Volume 1 of the Budget documentation (which is on Economic and Development Policies), and a bundle of four Appropriation Bills. Shortly after copies of Volume 2A, 2B and 2C (which are on the 2015 Budget Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for National Government Departments), and 2D (which is on the 2015 Budget Estimates for Statutory Authorities Provincial Governments Debt Services and Trust Accounts).

One very important note I would like to point out is that after the fourth paragraph on Page 4 of the Treasurers 34 page printed Budget Speech, the Treasurer veered off deliberately and talked about the K3 Billion UBS loan. This was not in the Treasurers written budget speech.

‘Page 4 of the 34 page Budget Speech document, this paragraph was deliberately added in after Paragraph 4;

“Mr Speaker as you will recall that earlier in the year the opportunity to purchase oil search shares arose and the O’Neill-Dion government made a decision to purchase a 10.1% share in the Oil shares as part of the 2014 supplement and abided in accordance with section 209 of the constitution we have appropriated for interest payments anticipated for in the next month National petroleum Company in Papua New Guinea that will refinance this transaction and take ownership of the shares”

The Opposition Leader, Hon. Belden Norman Namah, then commenced adjourning debate on each bill respectively until the last Bill when he raised the issue of the failure of the government to issue Volume 3 of the Budget Books in parliament which would complete presentation of the 2015 National Budget/Money Plan.

Mr Namah rightly refused to move the motion to adjourn debate on the last Bill rendering the presentation of ‘a budget’ incomplete. This ensued into an exchange between the speaker and the Opposition Leader, Mr Namah insisting on viewing the third volume before moving the motion to adjourn debate stating that this is setting a bad precedence in which it is tradition for the Complete Budget documentation to be presented in Parliament.

The Speaker insisted also that since the Treasurer presented his Budget Speech he took it as presented and requested the Leader of the Opposition to wait for the next meeting, one week later on the 25th November, to respond to the budget. To his understanding Budget Documentation will be delivered later to the Opposition Members. The Opposition Leader then refused stoutly to move the motion to adjourn.

Leader of THE Party, Hon. Don Polye raised a point of order on how important knowledge of Budget Expenditures in Volume 3 was to the people and to make presentation of the budget complete. The Speaker then made the ruling that these (Volume 3) are only accompanying bills so the Leader of Government Business can move the motion to adjourn the debate.

After a heated interjection from other Members of Parliament, Parliament was adjourned to the 25th November, 2014 at 10am as is tradition for the Opposition’s response to what the Opposition believes is an incomplete budget/money plan.

The question here is how can one tell a Nation that its budget is for K16.1 billion and then not tell the nation how it intends to spend it?

We in the Opposition believe that from the very beginning the O’Neill-Dion government and the Treasurer knew that the budget presentation on the floor of the people’s Parliament on Tuesday was INCOMPLETE since Volume 3 was never presented therefore rendering some parts of the presentation false or at least some part, if not all, of that budget presentation on the floor, was made in the absence of any genuine belief that the budget presentation was true.

The Opposition is not happy that they and their people in the respective districts were treated in such manner. We in the Opposition consider that the O’Neill-Dion government, through the Treasurer, made the INCOMPLETE budget presentation WITH THE INTENTION that the INCOMPLETE budget should be acted upon by the Opposition and the more than 7.5 million people of PNG.

Fortunately the Opposition detected the INCOMPLETENESS of the budget and the Opposition Leader refused to move adjournment on the last Bill meaning the Budget Presentation was incomplete.

Unless this incompleteness of the 2015 Budget is rectified, the more than 7.3 million people of PNG will have an incomplete 2015 budget with some parts, if not all, of which is wilfully false and the people will suffer and experience economic damages.

What the O’Neill-Dion government did, through the Treasurer, bordered on FRAUDULENT MISREPRESENTATION on the floor of Parliament to the people of PNG and maybe the world at large, about the completeness of the 2015 Budget and the veracity of parts, if not the whole, of the Budget Presentation.

This is my third term in Parliament and what happened on Tuesday was the very first time since 2002, if not in the history of Independent PNG, for it to happen. It is what I would call a National Economic Mismanagement Tragedy; courtesy of the O’Neill-Dion Government. Tuesday was a sign of worse economic times ahead for PNG.

(Note: Dr Marat's statement dated 19th November, 2014 was originally uploaded to The Opposition, Papua New Guinea page around 14 hours ago)

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