A view of the government benches in Papua New Guinea's parliament. Photo: RNZ / Johnny Blades
An Australian economic analyst says the Papua New Guinea Government should try and release a supplementary budget to counter a dramatic slump in the economy.
Government revenue is set to drop by more than 20 percent this year with the budget deficit more than doubling to 9.4 percent.
A visiting fellow at the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University, Paul Flanagan,
says there is a need for immediate belt tightening and a supplementary budget would be a good move.
He says it would be sensible to start cutting back by bringing a multi year budgetting package.
"It needs to include both the expenditure side, the revenue side and thinking how you can finance the differences. It means thinking about what is the appropriate role of government - are there certain functions that we should actually pass across to the private sector and let the government concentrate on areas of higher priority, such as education and health."
Paul Flanagan.
