Health and Education miss out in PNG Budget

An economist says Papua New Guinea government allocations to the health and education sectors have reduced substantially over recent years.

The 2019 Budget, released this week, was bigger than last year, boosted in part by a lift in resource earnings.

But the expected deficit is also high at $US545 million dollars, or two percent of GDP.

The PNG Government like all governments paints a rosy picture of its spending on health and education but both these sectors have been suffering in recent years and PNG Economics principal Paul Flanagan told Don Wiseman there is no reprieve in this latest Budget.