O’Neill’s economic mismanagement continues. An extra K4.3bn in public debt, and budget deficit blow-out of over one billion Kina
by PAUL FLANAGAN via PNG ECONOMICS BLOG The PNG Treasury released the 2017 Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) last night (31 July)- see here . This is an extraordinary document . Amongst the detail is a damning insight into O’Neill’s continuing mismanagement of the budget. There is little doubt that the original 2017 budget was fiscally fraudulent (see here and here ). The PNG Treasury document indicates, in summary: The budget deficit is over K1 billion larger than forecast only 7 months ago. The PNG Treasury document states the deficit has increased from K1,9bn to K2.8bn. This will continue the pattern of the O’Neill government having consistently the largest budget deficits of any government in PNG’s history – see here . And the actual deficit forecast is actually over K3bn when including the blowout in interest costs for all the public debt from K1.3bn to K1.5bn. This is the 3rd highest item of government expenditure – a fact hid