By MATTHEW VARI
Sunday, August 9, 2015 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)
BESIDES the fact that the National Government has not kept its side of the agreement to fund the National Development Bank (NDB) K100 million to boost the SME (Small to Medium Enterprise) sector through its SME Stimulus Package 2013 -2017- NDB is also yet to receive funds allocated to it through the 2015 National Budget.
The Bank revealed that despite the fact that it has been underfunded, from an expected K100 million yearly since 2013, and expected to boost the SME sector by the government- it has also not received the K50 million allocated to it to grow the sector at a very low concessional rate.
“Since 2013 to 2015 we have received only K140 million from the government out of the K300 million it was supposed to provide to support this program,” NDB Managing Director Moses Liu said.
“The government has underfunded NDB with K160 million to date. It is now August and the government has not released the K50 million that was allocated to NDB under the 2015 National Budget.”
“Despite all this NDB still has been able to fund our SMEs, most of which are startups small SME owners and to grow other small SME owners who want to go to the next stage in developing their businesses.”
He said it was unfortunate that the funds have not come through to have an effect on the organization, both in terms of financial operations and operational sustainability going forward for the bank.
Mr Liu added that the bank understood the current constraints set by various factors like the Pacific Games, Free Education, Free Medicare, and the DSIP PSIP programs - something he said all government departments affected in a big way.
“Those are priority programs and we understand that, however, we believe that this is a priority project as well, that is why the funds have not been forthcoming.”
“We were hoping that after the SP Games were over we were some funds like in July but still nothing has come through and the silence has been deafening,” he said.
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