21/10/2025
MARAPE’S FAILED 2025 BUDGET!*
20 October 2025
The Marape government has become synonymous with clichés and slogans but lacks the hard yakka to deliver for Papua New Guinea. In the Parliamentary Chambers I have decried that this 11th Parliament is overwhelmed with “pleasantries, platitudes, and pollyanna”. Leadership has become superficial, and reality has been skewed by vanity, pride, and ego amongst MPs.
In 2025 the Marape government bragged about a historic K28.357 billion national budget that would be a “game changer” for the country. At the end of 2025, we are looking hard to see how this budget has translated into service delivery and tangible development for our people.
Chuave has not received its budget appropriation. Where is the minimum K20 million under DSIP, DIP and Kina-for-Kina? Where is the PIP for our roads, power, and our limestone project? Why are we expected to be beggars in Waigani like the money belongs to the Prime Minister? Why hasn’t Simbu Provincial Government received its K34 million functional grants?
In short, the 2025 budget has failed because of the Marape government’s unsustainable spending, excessive borrowing, and an unrealistic revenue projection, exacerbated by weak fiscal management, poor implementation of government policy, and political interference.
Members of Parliament must judge the Prime Minister and his Treasurer on budget performance. When disparity, inequity, and omission in budget implementation occurs through selective warranting leading to sectors, provinces, and districts missing out on funds, then we must question how on earth the Prime Minister is running the country.
After 6 years of this pathetic PANGU-led government, and continued budget failure because of incompetence and the need to serve parochial interests above the needs of the nation, the time has come to put a stop to this inequity and petty politics based on political cronyism and favouritism. The country is just too big to be subject to such nefarious tactics and weak leadership.
We must measure leadership by results. Where is the fiscal discipline? Where is the law and order? Where is the vision for youth, for rural development, for sovereign dignity? Where are the million jobs, the agricultural resurgence, and the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)? Where is it after 6 years?!
As the Member for Chuave, I will be seeking Supreme Court enforcement of the Appropriations Act for the inequity in budget distribution and failure to recognize the people of Chuave and Simbu and how this government, through selective warranting, has deprived them of their rightful budget appropriation.
We must put a stop to the performative stunts, globetrotting, and broken promises, and demand leadership that understands systems, not slogans. What is happening to Chuave and Simbu are not isolated – it’s happening to other districts, provinces, and sectors. Members of Parliament must stop pretending. There’s a little kitchen cabinet that is plundering and pillaging the national coffers. There’s a better way to run the country with transparent, accountable leadership that embraces equity and stands for the people. After all, it’s the people’s money that we are dealing with. They pay taxes, they suffer because of inflation, and they are stuck with the astronomical loans that the government signs into.
Effective budget implementation underscores the competence of any Prime Minister. In 2025, just like in 2024 and years before, the norm is debt addiction fuelled by an insatiable government appetite for spending. Our national debt now stands at K65 billion, and we have no significant investments to show for all this debt and all this spending. Who will stop this madness?
*ENDS*
