Parliament reconvenes with disaster relief, budget gap on agenda

Parliament will resume on Tuesday 1st September, following its adjournment last week after the tabling of the historic 2019 Bougainville Referendum results.

It’s expected to go about normal government business before the National Government hands down a supplementary budget, on Thursday, 3rd September.

Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey confirmed a K300-million proposed disaster relief financing from the World Bank is among those considerations to be captured in the supplementary budget.

He said high costs of fuel subsidy and poor performance of Kumul Consolidated Holdings Limited dividend payments are also expected to be captured in this money plan.

Prime Minister James Marape said the government is preparing to table a deficit supplementary budget as it looks at cutting down costs on non-essential items that exceeded the budget appropriations for 2026.

He said its been a challenging year that the government has faced in cushioning the impacts of unforeseen costs such as rising costs of goods and fuel prices and now the El Nino.

He admitted that the expenditure costs are running close to K800 million on top of this years’ budget allocations of K30.9 billion.

The debate and potential date for voting on the Bougainville Referendum results is expected in the October sitting of Parliament.