Jubilee Australia: EFIC-funded PNG LNG Has Hurt PNG's Economy
(Jubilee Australia, Sydney, 29 April 2018) A new report on the economy of Papua New Guinea will reopen the case for the Australian government to be held accountable for the negligent decision to lend AU$500 million (US$376.5 million) of taxpayers' money to the PNG-LNG project. Jubilee Australia’s new report,‘Double or Nothing: The Broken Economic Promises of PNG LNG’, notes that “In 2008 Australian economics consultants, ACIL-Tasman provided inflated projections of growth in employment, essential services, household income and the broader economy if the PNG LNG project went ahead. This new analysis proves just how misleading these promises were and how PNG has slipped back into the poor policies associated with the resource curse. Currently, on almost all economic indicators, the people of PNG would have been better off had the project not happened at all." An Australian Broadcasting Corporation business report notes that the immense benefits predicted to flow from Papua New Guinea's liquified natural gas project have not been realised, and the country's economy has even gone backwards on some indicators.