Over 50pc spent on public servants: PM

Prime Minister James Marape says over K170 million is paid every fortnight to public servants.

That equates to a little over 50 percent of the money that is found in our country every financial year.

The Prime Minister has urged senior public servants to raise the bar, considering the amount of money spent on them from the Waigani Public Accounts.

Marape issued the challenge at a meeting he organised for Ministers and Departmental Heads at the International Convention Centre in Port Moresby, on the 20th of June.

“This is not the first time I am speaking on statistics on pay alone,” he stated. “As Finance Minister previously on three occasions I’ve raised this issue. If you put the statistics together it’s even scary. 

“Us as beneficiaries of the Waigani Public Accounts, and all our subsidiary government institutions and agencies, we do not equate to more than 3 percent of the country. I want that to sink in. We don’t equate to more than 3 percent of the country yet we consume over 50 percent of the country’s total financial earning every financial year, put together up till today – 44 years on.

“If that doesn’t dent your sense of reality, or if that doesn’t impress your sense of awakening to the call that is on us to really raise the bar, as far as performance is concerned, then nothing else will matter to us.

“We might as well waste, or defer from going to church on Sundays or Saturdays because we are not awakened to the reality that we, together, collectively, consume over 50 percent of resources that is meant for our people.”

The Ministers and departmental heads were reminded that 97 percent of the people are out there, fighting to survive in a contemporary Papua New Guinea.

Author: 
Carmella Gware