“Papua New Guineans and businesses houses in the country need to brace themselves for tough times ahead.” This is the alarming warning from Opposition Leader Joseph Lelang, in an address to citizens on the floor of Parliament. He said he sees that the Government will not be easing off on hefty borrowing. Adding to this worrying situation is the increasing stock of public debt, no solutions to inflation and shortages of foreign exchanges. Lelang stated that the Government’s promise of securing the future of the country over the medium term through the capital investment budget, is farfetched. “The MTDP IV shows the pathway to achieve policy directions toward 2030, a rich black Christian nation; however, this pathway is not fully resourced and funded and this demonstrates lack of commitment.” The Volume 3A Public Investment Program of the 2024 on page 1 provides a summary of the Resource Envelope of the Capital Investment Budget and it shows that the 2024 Budget books instead have appropriated capital investments 6 billion Kina in 2025; K5.2 billion in 2026; K4.5 billion in 2027; and only K2.1 billion in 2028. “We now ask, if this Government is serious about achieving its targets and policy directions contained in the MTDP IV by 2027 on page 1 of the MTDP IV document?” He said the Medium-Term Fiscal Strategy, the Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy, and the 13 Year Fiscal Plan of this Government, which promises a surplus in 2027 and 2028 and all that narrative will collapse, given the added full requirements of the MTDP IV into the Medium-Term projection. “We did a quick calculation using Treasury’s numbers in the budget documents and if we restored the full requirements of MTDP IV over the medium term of K10 billion annually.” What we found is. · Total expenditure and net lending will not decrease from 22.3% as a percentage of GDP in 2024 budget to 19.7% in 2028 as shown in these budget books. Instead, expenditure will increase from 22.3% in 2024 budget to 24.5% in 2028. · This is because total expenditure will not rise steadily from K27,388.5 million in 2024 to K32,268.2 million in 2028 as shown in the budget documents, instead will blow- out to K40,101.4 million in 2028. He said their calculations using Treasury’s budget numbers showed that total deficit as a percent of GDP will remain consistently high over the medium term. “The budget surpluses projected for 2027 and 2028, as shown in the budget documents will never be accomplished.” Lelang said with the full resourcing of the MTDP IV over the medium term, the rise in budget deficits will translate into planned new borrowing that will rise to K27,234.3 million in 2028, instead of the planned K5,245.0 million that they have shown in the 2024 Budget. “In addition, the public debt charges (principal, interest and other borrowing related charges) shown in Budget Volume 2a will be blown out.” “What we can summarize here is that full funding for MTDP IV is missing over the medium term 2025 to 2027.” He said there is a disconnect between Treasury and Planning that renders any medium-term Economic & Development Strategies of this Government void. “Any talk of surplus budgets, creating jobs and securing our people’s future is under threat and failure.”