‘Where are the jobs?’ Chuave MP James Nomane demands government be accountable amid record budget spending

Despite the Marape-Rosso Government passing record national budgets in consecutive years, a member of parliament wants to know how many new jobs were created.

Chuave MP James Nomane used a recent debate on the K27 billion 2024 budget to ask Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey to say how much cash was allocated to different sectors of the economy in the 2023 national budget. 

He said ordinary people saw a “big disconnect” between record government spending on the one hand, and the struggle to get jobs and provide for their families on the other. 

Accusing the government of a “failed implementation” of the last budget, he asked how much money had been released to sectors including agriculture, health, law and order and small to medium enterprises (SMEs). 

He said only once the numbers were public would Papua New Guineans be able to “hold the ministers to account, the government to account”. 

“This is the people’s money,” he added. “And they deserve to know exactly how their money’s being spent. 

“In 2023 we put forth and passed a historic budget of K24b. So where are the jobs? 

“And I’m not talking about just any jobs, I’m talking about decent jobs, that Papua New Guineans can be proud of, that Papua New Guineans can be gainfully employed in, to pay for school fees, for medical bills, to pay for insurance.” 

Last year, when the national government passed the K24b budget, the emphasis was on growing the economy, and one of the yardsticks was job creation.  

The MP from Chimbu Province said despite the growth of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), there had been no reduction in the increasing unemployment rate.  

According to the National Research Institute, unemployment rates have risen since 2020. 

Mr Nomane challenged Mr Ling-Stuckey to move away from using GDP as a measure of success, and instead focus on per-capita-income.