The admission confirms a widely held perception in PNG about the real effectiveness of Australia’s approximately A$400 million ($284 million) aid program.
At a joint news conference in Canberra with Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare, Rudd said the pair had discussed historical problems with aid delivery.
“Too much has been consumed by consultants and not enough delivered to essential assistance in teaching, in infrastructure and in health services on the ground in villages across Papua New Guinea,” Rudd said.
The effectiveness of aid to PNG needed to be tied to United Nations-mandated millennium developments goals, so outcomes from foreign aid spending could be measured, he said.
PNG Trade Union Congress general secretary John Paska said overseas donor funding must continue to be outside the control of the PNG government
Sir Michael, meanwhile, brushed aside questions about poverty in PNG, saying no one starved in the country.
“You have probably seen one or two in Port Moresby, kids who come to look for opportunities for education and health; when they miss out, then they, of course, roam the streets,” he said.
“No one is starving in Papua New Guinea. We always have something to eat.”
Sir Michael said food was in abundance everywhere in Papua New Guinea.
“Everywhere in Port Moresby alone, if you’ve been in Moresby, you see the hills and mountains have gardens,” he said.
“They have sweet potato gardens, tapioca gardens, they have bananas and I do not think anyone in Papua New Guinea starves.”
Sir Michael said PNG did not have the poverty of Africa.
“We are a village society. When one village is poor, the other village helps.”
