Papua New Guinea’s 2026 budget projects other revenue of K5.2 billion, up K2.5 billion on the 2025 estimate. The National reported Treasury attributing the rise to the new dividend policy, favourable gold prices, and the ending of repayments by PNG LNG partners on the debt that financed the project.
Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey told Parliament the government would lift revenue without raising taxes, citing “the Dividends policy compelling the Kumuls to pay more” alongside the new Income Tax Assessment Act, according to NBC. Total 2026 expenditure is K30.9 billion against K29.3 billion in projected revenue, leaving a K1.6 billion deficit that Treasury puts at 1.1 per cent of GDP.
Where the dividends come from
PwC’s 2026 budget commentary states the budget relies on a K850 million dividend from Kumul Mining and a 17 per cent rise in mining taxes, assuming record gold prices and no disruption at key mines.
The Asian Development Bank’s April 2026 Asian Development Outlook attributes the increase to a different source. Higher dividends to central government are expected from 2026 onward, ADB states, reflecting improved profitability at Kumul Petroleum following full repayment at the end of 2025 of the borrowings used to fund the government’s equity in PNG LNG. The dividend policy, in ADB’s account, will “likely further support revenue” rather than drive it.
Kumul Petroleum manages the state’s 16.57 per cent equity in the US$19 billion PNG LNG project, according to the company.
Telikom paid Kumul Consolidated Holdings a K3 million dividend in 2022, Islands Business reported, in a year the company posted a K28 million profit. KCH managing director David Kavanamur said at the time that the payment, after a long gap, was “a good indication that the business is profitable.”
On Exepreneur’s calculation, K3 million is 0.35 per cent of the K850 million Kumul Mining line in the 2026 budget. PNG Ports presented K51 million in dividends to KCH, according to The National.
The JMP Weekly Report, analysing the 2021 fiscal year, found that state-owned enterprises outside mining and petroleum paid no dividends for 2021, and none for 2020 or 2019 either, against an estimated consolidated SOE debt of K5.1 billion.
Partial privatisation at PNG Power and Telikom
State Enterprises Minister William Duma used his keynote at the 2025 Petroleum and Energy Conference in October to confirm the partial privatisation of PNG Power Limited, according to PNG Business News, describing the transition as a new era for the country’s energy future and framing it as a way to attract private investment.
Islands Business reported that Cabinet approved the partial privatisation of Telikom assets valued at K1.4 billion, with the superannuation funds given priority, and that Duma said the arrangement would let Papua New Guineans own their own telecommunications company. Kavanamur told The National that talks on more than 50 per cent of Telikom’s shares were continuing. Duma has said the majority stake would not be sold.
Thirteen per cent access against a 70 per cent target
PNG Power operates three major grids and fourteen standalone provincial systems, with around 580 megawatts of installed capacity, 4,100 kilometres of transmission and distribution lines and more than 124,000 customers, according to Kumul Consolidated Holdings.
ADB’s Power Sector Development Project documentation puts PPL’s managed capacity at about 320 megawatts of a national total of 600 megawatts, with the mining industry generating the remaining 280 megawatts for its own use. Global Energy Monitor recorded PNG’s entire national installed capacity at about 580 megawatts as of 2022, the same figure KCH gives for PPL alone. Exepreneur could not resolve the discrepancy against a third source.
The PNG Electrification Partnership joint statement, agreed with Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United States at the 2018 APEC summit in Port Moresby, records that about 13 per cent of the population has reliable access to electricity, against a target of connecting 70 per cent by 2030. Duma restated the 70 per cent target at the October conference, alongside universal access by 2050.
On Exepreneur’s arithmetic, that leaves a 57 percentage-point gap with four years remaining, or roughly 14 percentage points a year.
The 2026 revenue line
Treasury projects internally generated revenue rising K3.4 billion, or 14.5 per cent, to K27.3 billion in 2026, which it puts at 18.8 per cent of GDP, exceeding the 17.9 per cent target set for 2027 under the Medium-Term Revenue Strategy, according to The National.
In the staff-level agreement announced on 31 March 2026, IMF mission chief Nir Klein said the fiscal deficit narrowed to 2.4 per cent of GDP in 2025 from 3.3 per cent in 2024, mainly reflecting higher resource revenues and rationalised current spending, and that capital expenditure as a share of GDP rose for the first time since 2021. The Fund projects the 2026 deficit at 1.1 per cent.
Reuters reported the IMF sees growth easing to 3.8 per cent in 2026 from an estimated 5.6 per cent in 2025, with headline inflation rising modestly to 4.8 per cent. The Executive Board completed the sixth reviews in June, publishing as Staff Country Report 2026/129, with all quantitative performance criteria for end-December 2025 met.
Ling-Stuckey told Parliament debt would fall from 48.4 per cent of GDP in 2025 to 45.5 per cent in 2026, and to 42 per cent in 2027, according to The National. That is a 2.9 percentage-point reduction in 2026.
What the consolidation is measured against
Ling-Stuckey put the spending picture in per-capita terms himself. The National reported him telling Parliament the budget provides “only K430 per person for all our education expenditure, only K268 per person for health, only K219 per person for all our police, defence and court systems, and less than K200 per person for all our roads and wharves and airports,” against a total of about K2,882 per person. The population base is the 2025 census figure of 10.19 million, according to Business Advantage PNG.
UNICEF’s 2025 PNG annual report puts education at K4.935 billion, about 3.4 per cent of GDP against a 4 to 6 per cent benchmark, and health at K3.204 billion, about 2.2 per cent against a commonly used 5 per cent benchmark.
The World Bank approved US$150 million in budget support on 15 December 2025, with the reinforced State-Owned Enterprise Dividend Policy positioned as a complement to the new Income Tax Bill and its capital gains provisions. Han Fraeters, the Bank’s country director for PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, said in the release that PNG “has not been getting the returns it should from its immense resource wealth,” and that implementation would now be the test.
Australia’s position
The Lowy Institute’s December 2025 analysis identified GST withholding for state enterprises and a more predictable dividend policy among the measures that helped stabilise revenues. The same analysis recorded that Australia is PNG’s largest bilateral lender, having provided AU$3.13 billion in direct budget support since 2019, and argued that this places Canberra on the hook if the reform programme stalls.
ADB’s April 2026 outlook sets out the sequence ahead. The mid-2027 election will likely increase recurrent spending, public contracts may accelerate through 2026 ahead of it, and public capital spending will likely slow in 2027 as attention shifts to the poll.
