Bad decisions hold us back

The National Letters

PAPUA New Guinea is heavily reliant on revenues from the development of its abundant natural resources, which are owned by the country and its people.
Prudent management and development of the resources are the key to achieving sustained economic growth and development.
It will enable PNG to progress and achieve the status of a developed country.
Some of the obvious cases where politicians and their associates have made very poor decisions and sold the interest of this nation are in the development of mineral, petroleum, and gas resources.
The favourable and generous tax and other concessions granted to the PNG LNG and Ramu Nickel projects and the fast-tracking of project agreement negotiation and conclusion for some of the large gas and mining projects by way of signing of memorandum of agreements (MOUs) in recent times, is a clear demonstration that politicians are selling this nation very fast without due care.
The fast rate of growth in the nation’s debt in recent years is mainly a result of declining revenues from natural resources, and is a consequence of the poor judgment and decisions by our politicians and their associates.
This debt will consume all future revenues, and the current and future generations of PNG will struggle to make ends meet.
There will come a time when the resources will be depleted, driving the country into poverty and despair, with all sorts of social and economic problems. It will not get better if our politicians continue to make poor judgment and decisions on economic policy and commercial interest.
They key issues are:

  • Politicians do not have the experience and technical skills to deal with complex policy matters and commercial operations, which make them easily influenced and controlled by the interested parties and project developers.
  • Government institutions lack institutional capacity and technical skills for dealing with complex policy matters and commercial operations, which make them easily influenced and controlled by the interested parties and project developers.
  • The lack of good governance resulting in the lack of transparency and accountability in dealing with complex policy matters and commercial operations. This compounds poor judgment and decisions made by the Government bureaucrats and politicians.

The solution is to make the negotiation and decision-making process of natural resources development in PNG a fully transparent and accountable process.
This also means that any relevant documents will become available and accessible to the public.

Concerned taxpayer, POM