Spending wisely?
MATTHEW MORRIS Most Papua New Guinean’s are simply trying to get by: earn a living, pay school fees, get medical care for loved-ones. Many will also be wondering how, or if, their government will deliver critical services to help them along. The 2011 Budget provides some indications. PNG’s 2011 budget ( $3.5 billion ) is the country’s biggest yet and is equivalent to about K1500 for each person in PNG. The way that the government has chosen to spend this money is shown in the chart opposite. But what would you spend the money on? And how confident are you that the government will use taxpayers money wisely? PNG Treasury has now published the full set of documents for the 2010 budget on it’s website . The files are worth exploring, especially Volume 1, which contains lots of interesting analysis. The rest of this article is based on publicly available data from those documents. Economic growth Before looking further at how to spend K1500 per person, let’s take a