PNG NOT IN A POSITION TO NEGOTIATE HOW LOAN IS SPENT

by KEVIN MEMEH

Reports from many government departments are painting the same picture: a government that has badly overspent, is way over budget and can't even pay for the basics in health and education. The money crunch is already bad, promised government monies aren't coming into the ministries and it all promises to get worse.

It would be one thing if this overexpenditure was all staying within PNG to benefit PNG. Sadly that's not the case. PNG has long been one of the great foreign aid providers of the world. What do you think we mean by that statement? Maybe we're referring to Peter O'Neill's commitments of sizeable donations to Fiji and Solomon Islands? No, we're not.

We're talking about the PNG government handout to the world in the form of literal fortunes being given to foreign construction companies to build PNG infrastructure. Why is it that we've been independent for 2 generations and still seem incapable of building our own needed infrastructure in any quality way? At least that's what the government would have us believe.

The most outrageous assistance the PNG government gives to developing people outside PNG is the K6 billion loan from the Chinese government Exxim bank that has been used to hire Chinese companies to send Chinese workers to build infrastructure in PNG. Complain all you want about Australian foreign aid and how much bounces back into the hands of Australians. At least the money wasn't a loan to the PNG government but a gift.

The Japanese started the nonsense of calling loans "foreign aid" to fool the PNG public. The once new Jacksons airport was built with Japanese foreign aid but not donated money! This was a loan. Even worse, the loan agreement required that the majority of the money go to Japanese companies to design and construct the airport.

The K6 billion Exxim bank loan to PNG (labeled as Chinese foreign aid) is worse worse yet. The amount of money involved i huge. Again, the loan conditions require that Chinese government companies be used to build most of the infrastructure, and thus we are paying the Chinese in all kinds of ways. We're paying their salaries, their government construction companies (China Railways) and their government banks.

The loan was originally supposed to be mostly used to rehabilitate the highlands highway, many parts of which have become a chronic disaster zone. Immediately their were oddities in the almost unbelievably high prices that were quoted to build sections of road in PNG. Immediately some began to suspect that the costs had been jacked up to allow the provision of illegal kickbacks into the hands of local and national government officials.

If all that weren't enough,the O'Neill government decided to shift a big chunk of the loan away from the highlands highway and other badly needed road reconstruction projects and use it instead to help build Pacific Games infrastructure. How beneficial will this infrastructure be in stimulating economic growth after the games are over, compared against if the money had been used as intended on the highlands highway, the economic artery of the nation?

What an incredible waste of money. All willingly approved by our Prime Minister.

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