Chair of the Plans and Estimates Parliamentary Committee, Allan Bird said today in Parliament that the 2022 budget needed more consultation with key stakeholders.
Bird made these comments while delivering the committee’s response to the K22 Billion for 2022.
“The committee feels that there needs to be more interaction between the commission, treasury, the Department of National Planning and for better stakeholder engagement in future budget formulations to take into account input from all key stakeholders,” said Bird.
Bird also said that the budget allocations must be aligned with national visions.
“More logic should be put into aligning vision 2050 with provincial development plans. Linkages between high level visions and MTDP are lost at the implementation level.
“We strongly urge the department of national planning to get away from rubber stamping plans and to critique projects and link them to national visions before funds are allocated to projects at the provincial level so that people can get better outcomes,’ Bird said.
Past cultural practices are still in play, this is obvious in this budget. Bird said there needs to be stronger linkages to high level goals.
He also said that many projects that are allocated funding in budgets do not go through proper processes before being allocated funding.
“Project implementation cannot be based on ad hoc basis, giving scant consideration to long term sustainability and value for money to Papua New Guineans and cost benefit analysis.
“Many projects enter the budget without being subjected to a thorough cost benefit analysis. Planning officers admitted that many projects over the last 20 years have been hampering the budget and have little to do with value for money and it is difficult to assess their value to the country.
“We recommend that the project pipeline process at the department of planning and treasury needs to be reactivated and all users urged to comply,” he added.