WELLINGTON: Papua New Guinea (PNG) has bought 40 Maserati sports cars to chauffeur world leaders around next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, triggering an outcry from critics who say the poverty-stricken country has better things to spend its money on.

The cars — which retail for about US$150,000 each — arrive at a time when diseases such as polio and TB have re-emerged in PNG.