Economists around the Pacific Island countries and the world have been focussing on Papua New Guinea since the first export of the PNG LNG on May this year. Dr Mark Evans at the Pacific Policy Institute think-tank in Vanuatu is one of the economists who are warning the National Government to be very careful when spending money from the LNG Project. Dr Evans is warning the PNG Government not to repeat past mistakes in dealing with the funds. “The people of PNG do not want to sell their children’s Melanesian birthright – only to become poorer for it.” He said policy makers in PNG recognised the necessity of institution building in order to make the best use of the sale of the country’s LNG assets. “The results show how far their understanding has developed from the days of the PNG Mineral Resources Stabilisation Fund. “Will policy makers be able to turn lessons learned into action? We can only wait for these processes to be concluded and hope that the rules of the game are set for the future: transparency commitments, fund deposit and withdrawal rules, and the specific roles and responsibilities of its staff and board. The 2011 Organic Law on the Sovereign Wealth Fund provides the government’s framework for much of this.” He said another lesson from the past is that the management of LNG revenues is not purely a technical challenge. “It is also a political one. It requires a widely shared understanding of the importance of a well-defined and well-regulated fund. Significant consensus building will be needed to create the foundations for accountability. “In comparison with other efforts at natural resource governance, the PNG government has made good headway in creating a foundation for use of the LNG revenue. “However, having done this hard work, public conversation has died – from the outside, the process of putting the SWF into operation appears to have halted. - See more at: pngloop/2014/09/25/png-lng-spending-spotlight/#sthash.j9S0shlM.dpuf
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:56:04 +0000