Technical glitch a government lie: Opposition

Opposition Members of Parliament claim the reason given by the executive government and its agencies on the pay cut of public servants’ salary this week are all lies.

In a combined media conference in Port Moresby this afternoon, Opposition Leader Joseph Lelang, his deputy Douglas Tomuriesa and members of the People's National Congress [PNC] Party claimed the increased income tax on thousands of governments paid workers on their first pay cheque of 2024 was in line with the new tax structure passed in the 2024 National Budget last year.  

Opposition Deputy Leader Tomuriesa said “Someone has come with a story that, there was glitch in the system, how can it become a glitch in the system when it was passed by the government in [November] 2023, it cannot be glitch, it happened because it was introduce on the floor of Parliament.”

Former prime minister and PNC party parliamentary leader Peter O'Neill further claims the government is selling another lie.

“Issue about tax glitch is another lie, during the debate in Parliament in November we clearly outlined the façade of increasing the zero-tax rate to K20, 000 per person on their salary.

“In reality, they removed all the rebate on the dependents and marginal increases in other salary levels, so all in all there was increase in taxes,” Mr O’Neill said.

But in a media statement the tax office said there is no increase in salary tax for this year.

Internal Revenue Commission [IRC] Chief Commissioner Sam Koim said “the dependency rebates eliminated by Parliament last year had not been effected yet, so claims that the pay cut is due to the removal of dependency rebates are unfounded.”