Comments

Does PNG debt include SOE borrowings and other off-balance-sheet debt?

Solid, well-researched, thoughtful piece by colleagues Matt and Fox, although not all the details are always in the data/numbers alone and media reports should not be pooh-poohed out of hand. Moreover, should the Pacific be studied in isolation, or in comparison with other countries/regions to to provide a more complete picture? Hot the heels of the Dornan-Fox report a news item from the South Morning China Post about the Maldives' Chinese experience: The Maldives owed Chinese government US$3 billion, not US$1.5 billion as widely estimated. Nearly all the deals secret, at inflated prices, potentially corrupt. Is corruption a variable in the Pacific and was it/should it be considered in drawing conclusions? In the Maldives case, the liabilities are greater than initially believed and will soon outpace the islands’ ability to pay. Any future lessons here? If all above board with Chinese loans, why did Malaysia cancel two projects worth US$22 billion? Why is Pakistan trying to delay or revisit some projects worth US$60 billion? Are these developments relevant to the Pacific or not? What can we learn from them? Should they be part of any review on the subject to provide broader conclusions? For example, is it relevant to the Pacific that Sri Lanka, after failing to renegotiate loan payments, ceded a port to China under a 99-year lease? <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/2172236/new-maldives-government-begin-untangling-secret-building-deals" rel="nofollow">The full news item is here</a>. Is it media speculation or are we lulled in a false sense of security?

'Debt-trap claims unfounded. Pacific NOT drowning in Chinese debt'. Question is consequence of continued borrowing at current/accelerated rate. Any long-term financial risks or not? Should we look at Pacific in isolation? Do Sri Lanka, Africa hold any lessons for us or not?

Over the years since my assignment I’ve continued to work remotely for my host organisation on an as-needs basis because my experience on the ground with them and my knowledge of the programs means I can deliver what they need quickly. So the volunteer program can and does work, just not for everyone and not all of the time. Maybe all the organisations involved need to go back and really look at the value they place on their ICMs and work out how to gain and retain the best people for the role. Because finding someone who can fulfill all of those responsibilities is tough. The top ICMs should be recognised and rewarded for their commitment not only to the volunteer program but also to the development landscape in the countries where they work.

Great post, couldn't agree more. There are a lot of contracting/ delivery partners that we work with which seem to have a 'carbon copy' hiring policy.

This is a most welcome initiative by the Labor Party. Many people, <a href="https://devpolicy.org/an-investment-bank-for-australias-aid-program-20180515/">including Bob McMullan and myself</a>, have been arguing for years that Australia should join most of the other OECD countries and set up such a Development Finance Institution. This would allow Australia is do more with its aid program than simply making grants, eg loans and guarantees, and could be expanded beyond infrastructure to others areas of development, such as financial inclusion, renewable energy, education, housing and healthcare.

Thanks mrs Ann, for being keep in touched with timorese workers in UK and please keep looking for the others timorese in the UK. I my self have a plane to go to the UK as the others has done. This is I think the best Way to fine jobs for the beter future. Finally if you have an ideas about that. Thanks for your kindnes

I live in PNG, and wanted to say thank you for the insight into what goes on behind the scenes. You sound like one of the "good ones". Hang in there -- PNG needs leaders like you.

On diversification, the caring industries seem like an area where robots are unlikely to quite hit the mark for quite some time (hopefully never, but I guess I'm just old fashioned...). Also with an inquiry into aged care in Australia we might finally see mandated staff-client ratios, which would increase the demand for aged care workers. Would be great to see these opportunities go to Pacific workers, so hopefully the PLS sets up good pathways into this sector.

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Totally agree with the attraction to brainy high paid desk jobs in Hi Commissions leaving gaps in the field. It's a difficult balance. Job design is perhaps a way to use the capable locals better in these higher paying jobs, have a wider and slightly more engaged project management role that does more than tick boxes. It seems staff in hi Comm roles have barriers to what's really going on in the midst of the project in the field.

FROM Peter D. Dwyer, Monica Minnegal and Michael Main With apologies to Vailala for the delay in responding to comments. Thanks also for engaging with the article. We accept that available sources on the ways in which Business Development Grant (BDG) money were allocated and spent leave much to be desired. We tried to minimize confusion by using examples that had multiple sources. We did not discuss Infrastructure Development Grant (IDG) money because available information was less reliable. We are unsure why Vailala added that reliance upon anthropologists ‘who may have an interest in muddying the waters can lead to confusion’ because the only anthropologist referenced in our article was one of us. Public transparency and accountability on the part of government and government departments would offset the difficulties entailed in accessing reliable sources. As in earlier Devpolicy posts, Vailala places great emphasis on legal issues. In this way s/he directs attention to what should be done from the perspective of the law and to ways in which penalties may sometimes be imposed upon those who do not do what the law is interpreted as indicating should have been done. In this sense Vailala’s emphasis is with a particular category of ideals – to which, it seems, s/he is sympathetic. Our emphasis is with practice, with what people are actually doing irrespective of rights or wrongs from the perspective of the law. And on that count we continue to assert that BDG money has been seriously mismanaged and now assert that nothing Vailala has written challenges that assertion. Details with respect to one matter may be informative. With reference to BDG monies Vailala directs attention to Hiwa Tuguba Joint Venture Ltd v Vele [2016] PGNC 415; N6782 (21 December 2016). In this case, the plaintiffs – Hiwa Tuguba Joint Venture Ltd and others – sought payment of ‘unpaid BDGs in the sum of K10 million or alternatively damages’. Their claim was dismissed on the basis that the only landowner company that ‘has standing to bring this proceeding is Hides PDL1 Holdings Limited by virtue of NEC decision NG53/2012’. Hides PDL1 Holdings Limited subsequently became Hides Gas Development Company. The PDL 1 (Hides) local level benefit sharing forum held in late 2009 recorded that the ‘National Executive Council has apportioned the sum of K120 million to all licence areas and has consequently allocated K20 million to Hides PDL 1 Landowners’. The amount of K29.28 referred to by Vailala, and focal in the above legal decision, was an additional sum subject to a ministerial submission for approval ‘as business development grant for possible funding under the National Budget’. We are not aware of any analogous sum of money being made available to landholders of any other licence area. It was this K29.28 million, and not the K20 million, that, in the court case under discussion and by reference to NEC decision NG53/2012, was to be administered by Hides PDL1 Holdings Limited. The plaintiffs in the case mentioned by Vailala may well have sought funding from the K20 million allocated as BDG money to landowner companies associated with PDL 1. Indeed, the fact that their 2010 applications had been lodged with the Department of Commerce Trade and Industry and not with Hides PDL1 Holdings Limited suggests they were targeting the K20 million allocation rather than the K29.28 million allocation. If that was so, their case may have still merited dismissal but not for the reasons stated by the court and apparently accepted by Vailala. We certainly agree with Vailala when s/he writes that ‘many Southern Highlanders and Hela people are strongly committed to grasping the opportunities presented by the LNG Project to initiate local development and reduce poverty’. We accept also the intent of Vailala’s statement that ‘tradition-based societies may often use their traditions as an inspirational basis for rapid modernisation’. Sadly we worry, on the first count, that these wise and committed people are seldom provided with the opportunities or resources to do the things that need to be done and, on the second count, to paraphrase Vailala, that some powerful people within tradition-based societies may often use their traditions as an inspirational basis for accrual of private wealth to the detriment of the well-being of their fellow citizens.