Media Release- Shadow Attorney-General Hon. Keith Iduhu
SHADOW Attorney-General Hon. Keith Iduhu has expressed disappointment that debate on amendments to the Central Banking Act brought forward by Treasurer Hon. Ian Ling Stuckey was blocked by the government.
Mr Iduhu said it was disappointing that debating important amendments to the
Central Bank’s functions were blocked without proper oversight by the house, and it
further confirmed that the IMF has overreaching powers controlling PNG’s fiscal and
monetary policies.
Mr Iduhu said: “I’m no economist, but the independence of the Central Bank is to
ensure that it manages the monetary policy of the country, while the fiscal policy is
the government’s responsibility.
“The amendment yesterday was a sham. While the Treasurer floated words like
price stability and many other cosmetic changes to the Central Bank Act, what was
glaring and not properly debated and discussed was the proposition that a ‘monetary
policy committee’ would be set up.
“This committee would then be subjected to the Treasurer’s oversight, who by and
large is responsible for the fiscal policy of the nation.
“This basically means that the Treasurer is giving himself dual roles to provide
scrutiny and oversight on the monetary policy. More worryingly, the Treasurer did
concede that the amendments were based on the interventions imposed by the IMF.”
Mr Iduhu said this should concern all members of parliament when we are effectively
letting a foreign corporation dictate our monetary policy.
“Are we selling our sovereignty to external forces? Why are we subjecting ourselves
to puppeteering to external forces like the IMF, and not implementing actual change
to help our mums and dads?
“These amendments will have no consequence to the price of basic goods and
services. It will have no consequence to correcting the economy. Essentially, the
Marape-Rosso government is leading us astray, into more chaos and economic
turmoil,” Mr Iduhu said.
