2016 Budget both the easiest and hardest to do: Vele

Caption: Treasury Secretary Dairi Vele

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, November 8, 2015 (PNG)

TREASURY Secretary Dairi Vele revealed that the 2016 National Budget was the both the easiest and the hardest one he has been involved in.

His comments came at the 2016 National Budget Press Lock-Up held during the week when deliberating on the prudent steps needed in the formulation of the 2016 money plan that saw a K14.2 billion budget passed in Parliament.

“This is my third budget now and it is probably the most difficult budget and easiest budget that I’ve had to do,” Vele said.

“Easy because there is not a lot of choices as the world markets are where they are and our revenues are where we are. So we don’t have the big K17 billion to K16 billion budgets that we have had over time.”

“But it is coming to terms with these few choices that we have to make that is really difficult- we have had to look at ways to maintain the growth momentum that is prevalent in the economy.”

He said some of the criticisms earlier on was for cut to take place there and then through an across the board approach, however, he added that the momentum of various working projects and program were at risk if cutting measures were taken across the board.

“What we’ve tried to do is focus on those projects, those initiatives, those policies again which have growth momentum,” he said.

“Particularly working with our private sector and foreign partners trying to make sure that we aren’t adversely affecting some of those programs where they are heavily invested in.”

“A lot of people and companies they have to go out and take a loan to invest so you have to finance some of the initiatives that we do and if entities and persons and partners have gone out and put some money in a particular area and all of a sudden government funding is not going to turn up that would adversely impact the economy which is not what we want to do.”

He stated that the process had taken some time due to the identification process of particular areas which is important for government investment to be maintained and in some areas increased.

“Those projects that are more than 75% complete which have to do with certain priority areas we have tried to keep.”

“Keeping our commitment to our debts and our donor programs that friends of Papua New Guinea put up counter funding for.”

The treasury secretary pointed out the importance of maintaining job in major projects being undertaken.

“We try to not put Papua New Guineans out on the street both from the private and public sector. There is a lot of opportunities for us to extract value from our people getting them to work harder so they can get paid accordingly and move on and make better lives for themselves.”