Government-by-Government Assessments: Papua New Guinea
During the review period, the government made significant progress in three areas, by (1) ensuring the budget provided a substantially full picture by including major sources of revenue and expenditure, (2) ensuring actual revenues and expenditures reasonably corresponded to those in the enacted budget, and (3) publishing a substantive audit. The executive budget proposal, enacted budget, and end-of-year report were published online. Information on debt obligations was not available in a reasonable period, including for state-owned enterprises. The information in the budget was considered generally reliable. The supreme audit institution did not meet international standards of independence and did not publish audits that covered the entire annual executed budget. But for agencies it did audit, however, the most recent audit contained substantive findings and recommendations. The government specified in law or regulation and appeared to follow in practice the criteria and procedures for awarding natural resource extraction contracts and licenses. Basic information was publicly available on how the government awarded natural resource extraction contracts in the mining sector, but not in the oil and gas sector. The sovereign wealth fund had a sound legal framework and disclosed its source of funding and general approaches to withdrawals.
Papua New Guinea’s fiscal transparency would be improved by:
- Publishing debt information in a reasonable period, including for state-owned enterprises;
- Ensuring the supreme audit institution meets international standards of independence and publishes complete audit reports within a reasonable period; and
- Making basic information on natural resource extraction awards publicly available.
Original source can be found here.
