Comments

Hello Micheal, This is an interesting piece. I enjoyed reading it since it puts the events and decisions of what had happened over the past few months and PNG politics into better perspective. I have only one question- Since you make the claim that regions with more MPs receive more than those that have less, why were there less ministries given to the MOMASE region and more to the Papuan region during the O’Neil era? Where most of them with the Opposition?

Hi Rohan, are we even sure that the increased dividends from statutory authorities are being paid out of earnings, or is it possible they are being paid out of new borrowing? Cheers Tony

Thank you for this interesting blog post. I must admit that I was one of the people who was ignorant of this Ebola outbreak. It is scary to know that it is occurring in a place with an ongoing war and further worrying that it has already spread to a neighbouring country. Thanks again for bringing us up to speed, Amanda.

Hi. Thank you so much for providing such an informative and knowledgeable article on your website regarding the non-government aiding whose effectiveness has been compared. It was really a pleasure reading out your blog. I hope in future as well you will keep sharing such high quality content that keeps the user glued to your website for a longer duration.

The macro economic analysis is simple and make more sense to indicate what PM said is not achievable within a decade. Past governments have a problem and that is there is no diefinite economic policy to trigger change. Every important economic decisions were being politicised and in the event make them more ambigious. Since the comparison above shows that the less the population of a black nation the richer they become with respect to GDP per capita..What is required as a PNG context to trigger change for improving affluency a policy or policies need to be tailored to ensure gains from extractive industry is directed to Agriculture sector..Government's SME policy to give more focus to small enterprise involving in Agriculture. The country needs active people to engage in formal employment activities of which Agriculture seems to be very fitting. The country will be more poor should the bulk of population is idle or rather engage in domestic activities which are not captured in macroeconomic analysis.

@Maholopa. Your article is spot on and well researched. I truly hope that people at the top also do their homework and research before advising our leaders what to say and what not to say. Also attitude from grassroots to the top level is also very important. Everytime I take a ride around the city, the amount of graffiti I see on the walls, fences and on road signs, billboards, buildings and just about anything that has a surface is simply shocking and worrying. Adding to that, the amount of littering that is taking place is unbelievable. Betelnut spittle is another thing. Chewing itself is fine but spitting every where and thinking that it is fine and normal simply shows that our sense of attitude has gone out the window and beyond reach. I hope that we can return to good old days of personal hygiene, clean towns, clean buses, buildings without graffiti and chewing bettelnut without spitting every where. Once we reach that state again, then perhaps we can start thinking about becoming the richest black nation in the world.

That is very informative. The 1026 households is 0.012% of 8 million assumed population in PNG. This research is not about PNG, its about these provinces or districts being surveyed, it has less confidence level to represent PNG. Wide spreading in PNG need more data at this stage. Thank you

I was once told that, India was one of the countries experiencing cheapest internet rates. It is very unlucky for PNG to experience a very high rate. The growth for Digicel in PNG is remarkable, comparing to other countries in which Digicel operates. Within only 10 years time, Digicel PNG already has a market share of half the population. It is my assumption that, in the next only five years, digicel PNG will cover almost the population. PNG government need to have a well structure strategy by inviting some competitors into the Telcom industry. I personally, experienced a very hard time coping with the rates of digicel. It very high. Like, a 6 minutes talk time for a K3. 00 flex card. The data bundles are also expensive. With the services not fully operational, bundles are another cost. Digicel with it agressive approach, it dominate the industry now in PNG. Even, the very Media owned by PNGans has been taken over, like Play Box. Look, the government can have some competitors like A-Tel in 2014 or others across the world, or subside locally owned company (B-Mobile) by simply building more transmitters around the rural areas. That suppose to be a long term investment. PNG government have the potential to generate some good revenue, I believe with the merge of Telecome and B-mobilee will. But, in India as I mentioned, the rates are very cheap because there are many telecommunication companies operating in the cities and towns. Where there is competition, there is market equilibrium. The Marape - Steven government has a bigger tasks of bring down economics debt, and also a broad base revenue base to be established.

Every report we receive about poverty either in PNG or any third world nation from western scholars is simply written from capitalist lens. Any report that continues to measure poverty in developing countries including PNG on the basis of income per capita, as this report shows, is pure capitalism. By now we should know that the true wealth of a person is not measured by how much a person has or how many dollars s/he can receive in a day. A true richness is measured by level level happiness (refer to UN Happiness Index).

Thanks for the insights

Those are fair comments, both from an external point of view which looks at the overarching contributing factors which did force the PM to step down. The other reason the people of PNG saw and wanted their MPs to withdraw from supporting P. O'Neill's government was systemic endemic corruption encouraged and allowed to take deeper roots in the upper class government bureaucratic and even higher up. That trend caused massive disservice to the country. The projects for which the money was borrowed for never started. eg, Upgrading of Highlands Highway or any other road systems. Job creation is a direct result of investments to encourage economic activities in all sectors. That didn't happen in PO time. The country is now in much worse economically much than it was when PO took over as PM for 8 years. PO does not deserve being credited as the longest serving PM of PNG for his sound economic policy and management and good governance, but his longer term as PM was due to him encouraging, participating and rooting corruption at high decision making places which is affecting the country now.

This is somewhat a more simplistic and realistic approach to analysing somewhat a more complex economic situation in PNG. What the new government needs now is a new team of economic experts to do a situational analysis of where we are now in the national, regional and international stage and chart a way forward. Another main area would be to strengthen the public service and the criminal justice sector to curb law and order situation and make way for criminal justice of crimes committed by public office holders at the political and executive levels. One more thing that needs to boost our economy is to put our people back to work in primary production and industry and develop local resources. Once we have a bulk of our population working, we can truly become truly independent by relying more on local produce. Increased export of agricultural produce in raw materials as well as processed items are a sustainable means for economic boost. PNG needs good governance and prudent management of its limited resources and one such resources is it's human population. It is a sad fact that since PNG relied more on Mineral and oil and gas export revenue, the revenue generated from export of primary production dropped drastically. This tells us that PNG has gone way out of its safe zone in its economic management in terms of revenue generation. Unwise spending and systematic corruption are two major issues that need to be screened and checked in order to close the leaking taps in our national pool of Treasury.