project, construction of which began in 2010 and production of LNG in 2014. 2014 was also the peak for economic growth in PNG, with GDP growth of around 15.4%. Optimism regarding future revenues was buoyant, and resulted in a significant carry-forward in government spending which included scheduled wage increases for public servants and the construction of vanity infrastructure including Oilsearch Stadium and APEC Haus. The buoyancy was short-lived; by 2018 an earthquake coupled with declining economic activity saw GDP growth fall to 0.8%. Wage increases were postponed and became future year liabilities that the budget could not afford. Faced with declining revenues, falling business confidence and poor prospects for recovery, a challenge to his leadership became inevitable. O'Neill systematically defended his whole performance in an interview after he lost office. That is most notable and controversial with respect to the UBS loan meant to acquire interests in the Elk Antelope gas field through shareholding in Oil Search. He claims that investigations by regulatory authorities in Switzerland and Australia declared everything in order. "They've found that these arrangements were in order, except that nobody predicted the collapse of the world prices... I mean, nobody could predict it. So we were caught in a situation where we needed to sell down these shares". Oil Search is according to him a great asset for PNG and deserved to be supported. He sees his policies for free education and health care as a success. He does not deny that there are problems in delivery of these services e.g. shortages of medicines or late payment of teacher salaries, but according to him "It is more of a management problem than government not prioritising", His successor, Marape, described the economy when presenting his first budget as "struggling and bleeding", and also said that the country was in "a very deep economic hole". O'Neill in response claimed that the budget was based on false information published for political gain. According to O'Neill the treasurer had created a higher debt to GDP ratio simply by changing the methodologies used to inflate the number. He considers the negative view of the PNG economy as IMF inspired and the budget made up by foreign academics who even had not lived in the country. O'Neill and Marape It seemed that O'Neill would retain power after his resignation. He was the leader in parliament of the largest political party, the PNC. However,