K250 million have been allocated in the 2017 National Budget to fund the preparation of hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member nations in Port Moresby.
Treasury Minister Patrick Pruaitch today handed down the K12.9 billion 2017 National Budget.
In this year’s budget, APEC Authority received K80 million for APEC security and 2017 National Election security preparations.
The Treasury Minister said the benefits of hosting APEC outweigh the cost.
“The expenditure on APEC is necessary for any government in the world to host a meeting of this size,” Pruaitch said.
“The benefit for me is not looking at the government expenditure but the opportunity APEC brings, there will be 10, 000 plus investors coming, and that is what the government is looking for.
“We are interested in after the staging of APEC, how many people will bring their cheque books to PNG as an investors’ destination and they will not look to Australia or Indonesia.”
The cost of hosting APEC was the hottest topic debated in Parliament last week.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill in Parliament stated that the cost of hosting APEC will be less than K200 million not K600 million as earlier stated by the APEC and Sports Minister Justin Tkatchenko.
But the Opposition Leader Don Polye said, if his coalition in the Opposition forms government after the 2017 elections, they will cancel the summit scheduled for 2018 because of the cost of hosting it.
PIcture: A picture of a previous APEC Leaders’ Summit. Picture source: rappler.com.