An Australian academic says there are concerns too much of the Papua New Guinea national budget goes on new developments rather than maintaining existing facilities.
The comment comes from Australian National University professor, Steven Howes, as his Development Policy Centre meets with the PNG National Research Institute to study ways to make budget spending more effective.
They will consider the results of a survey looking at the impact on key infrastructure of the substantially bigger budgets of the last few years.
Professor Howes says the surveys have been conducted going back ten years and one thing they have noticed is the tendency to spend on projects rather than supporting every day service delivery funding.
"Certainly one of the things that our team noticed as they went out as just that the standard of facilities left a lot to be desired. A lot of them were literally falling down. So I think one problem is that so far too much of the new money has gone onto new projects, for new roads or new classrooms and not enough has gone onto maintaining the existing stock of assets."
Professor Steven Howes.
