Parliament will resume tomorrow (Nov 21) at 2pm after a month and 20 days in recess.
The main discussion for the session will be on the 2018 National Budget and other bills like the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) bill.
The 2018 National Budget will be the main agenda of discussion as the country is currently facing economic crisis due to low commodity prices in the world market.
Many critics have described the country’s economy as aligned by PNG’s public debt levels, which have been exploding.
Critics described the actual size of the increase as three-fold - from K8.4 billion in 2012 to at least K23.9 billion in 2017.
However, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill continues to maintain his stance that the country’s economy is still on track with a reasonable GDP growth rate.
O’Neill further reaffirmed that the country’s economy is growing rapidly in the Pacific region compared to other island nations.
Meantime, Shadow Minister for Treasury, Ian Ling-Stuckey, said a hidden issue that poses a major risk to PNG is that the government had to move to borrow for shorter and shorter terms.
He added that the Government is having to borrow and then repay more and more and this increases the debt roll-over risk.