Transcript
"We have to know what's going on"
That's the deputy leader of Papua New Guinea's opposition party, Sam Basil.
SAM BASIL: We understand that currently PNG is slipping into financial difficulties in terms of not having the liquidity in our monetary system because we know that the Government has been recklessly spending money in the past few years. We are now in a situation where the Government cannot afford its basic payments of services. It's not only the UN fees, we also have problems with our state institutions not being able to have the funding, budgeted funds coming through, for the Government to pay the bills. We had the national Parliament that was cut out of power because they could not afford to pay their power bill and we all know that the Government is struggling to pay many of its bills...
AMELIA LANGFORD: It's not looking good is it for the country to host APEC?
SB: Well, it's very embarrassing for us - Papua New Guinea - when we know that we will be hosting this very important APEC meeting next year. The way we are going - it doesn't look good and we are very worried about how we will manage...when we have the APEC meeting.
AL: What do you think needs to be done now before APEC comes along?
SB: Currently we do not know how deep is the hole that is created by this Government because the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister are not upfront on how much debt they have created for PNG... the national elections are coming up and the onus will be with the new Government to do a stocktake...and we have to put strategies in place to make sure we recover from where we are but honestly speaking we don't know how much our country owes.
AL: And how worried are you about PNG's standing with the UN if it can't pay its member fee?
SB: One of the Opposition MPs called on the Foreign Affairs Minister to come clean on the issue and I think the Prime Minister said it was an administrative issue. But look, it's not only paying the UN bill, it's many other bills that we're not paying. So, I think it all comes back to the mismanagement of the economy. The Prime Minister is too scared to come out and tell the truth so all we want is the truth from the Prime Minister - we have to know what's going on - how much debt are we in?... But there is no recovery measures being announced by the Finance Minister, even the Prime Minister. They are just tearing on from day to day, sucking up whatever funds are available to meet their obligations such as free education, free health and other necessary infrastructure being built in Port Moresby.
AL: How bad do you think the situation might be?
SB: I think it's pretty pretty bad. Most of the real scenarios are not really reported. We are having problems with the two daily newspapers, they're not really reporting what they have to report and they're not really reporting what the Opposition is saying. We've been saying a lot about the economy, we've been saying a lot about the mismanagement, but the press are not running the stories and I believe that most of the press offices in Port Moresby - some of them are on the payroll of ministers - they're taking junket trips around the world and they have been very compromised in terms of not truly representing a free press reporting issues affecting PNG.
AL: How concerned are you about this situation?
SB: We're so worried about the situation. I even stood up in Parliament with a list of issues against the Prime Minister during the vote of no confidence - that's how worried we were to get rid of the Prime Minister. We did our part. I stood up, I read everything and unfortunately a lot of MPs did not see the reality of what the Opposition was talking about and now we're facing the realities. We are so worried that we do not have a Prime Minister that is a fit and proper person to run this country. That's how worried we are.
AL: The way the country's going now, do you think it will actually be able to host APEC?
SB: If the new Government comes into play and the buildings are already fixed and arrangements are in place, we may not have a choice - we have to host it. But in the beginning, we said it was not a good idea and if the Prime Minister would have listened to us, we would have saved some money to look after the economy. But if we go past the half-way line it would be too late for us to stop it and it would be an international embarrassment if we do.
AL: So you think it would have been better if the country had said 'we are not going to host APEC yet, we're not ready for it'?
SB: Well, we all know we are not ready for it but as I've said, if we commit everything, and buildings are up, and everything's on [then] the country just has to go ahead and do it. But...it's a bad idea and we shouldn't have been hosting it in the first place.
