2013 Budget - Rural Focused

The Government has just announced that the 2013 Budget will be Rural Focused as most of it will go directly to the District levels via the Provincial Governments and their LLGs for themselves to administer. This is to relieve the mass misuse of funds when it all sits in Waigani, Port Moresby. This concept will also relieve the national government in administering the full budget but focus mainly now on major national infrastructures and the public service. The provincial governments will in turn administer its own roads, bridges, schools, health and provincial assets. So, should the province not see any benefits or improvements then they themselves will be held accountable. The budget will also assist farmers in subsidizing the short fall in prices for their cash crops hence empowering the small-holder farmers to keep on producing thus the agriculture sector as a whole will improve. Basically the whole aim of the government with this budget is to see provinces be financial independent.

Recent Past Issues

Much has happened since my last post in the likes of the Royal visit to the country by Prince Charles and his wife Camilla. A lot of talk was said about the improved road conditions that came about as a result of the visit by the Royals in a short period of time and only to the locations where the Royals will be visiting, hence causing the buzz by the people. Otherwise, the visit went smoothly, with Prince Charles giving his speech at the Sir John Guise stadium where he made the crowd go up in roar as he spoke in the local language of Tok Pisin. There is also the Asylum Centre in Manus which is now complete and awaiting the arrival of the first refugees to enter any time now. The locals on the island and their members have negotiated a development package with the Australians as part of the agreement. Some of the assistance to the islanders include the upgrade of the road from Momote Airport to the town centre. The Lorengau hospital will be renovated and upgraded. There will be 20 classrooms built as well and 10 teachers offices, and the upskilling of medical officers to name a few. Air Niugini's Boeing 737 which usually services the international routes has now been made to run domestic routes with the first domestic port to fly to is the Momote Airport on Manus Province. Its other domestic ports include Tokua Airport in Kokopo, Boram Airport in Wewak and Gurney Airport in Alotau to name a few. There is also the K6 Billion Loan from the China EXIM Bank which debates about it are ongoing in the media and social network sites. Recent media reports say that the loan process has been approved and is nearing completion in its details of the loan. From this loan, much will go into the infrastructure developments in the likes of major roads like the Highlands highway and various other roads throughout the country. Still on infrastructure, it is said that improvement of our current Power and Communication infrastructures will be done with the help from this loan also. The Taskforce Sweep Team has also made inroads in arresting and charging individuals in various corrupt practises and is still ongoing. A recent talk by the Team Leader Sam Koim in Sydney about the various properties owned by Papua New Guineans in the North Queensland area by certain high profile individuals to a total value of more than K1 Billion is questionable as to how this was possible. Otherwise much of the big news that happened recently in the country has just been briefly mentioned and smaller issues will be discussed in my later posts.