Correct information important

IN a world today inundated with information, PNG is starved of correct information.
Yet in Papua New Guinea, in the age of internet information on virtually every field from governance to medicine and food is limited, outdated or plain wrong.
Almost every major report on any sector in this country carries an excuse at the start: “Information is so scarce and what little is there is unreliable….but based on what we have been able to gather here is the result…”
This of course often makes redundant the entire report as being based on flimsy research.
The budget is drawn up year after year but government information on population distribution in the wards, districts, electorates and provinces is scarce.
At best, money is allocated on guesstimates.
Major economic projects are undertaken in the country without any effort to do a cost/benefit analysis; or do a survey on the long term impact of the project.
The people have overcome many natural disasters and emergencies but little is recorded for posterity so they can deal with such situations better with little loss of property and lives.
As an example, in 1983 and 1984, Rabaul town was ready for evacuation when the Tavurvur and Vulcan volcanoes started to heat up.
Nothing happened until Sept 19, 1994, when again Tavurvur and Vulcan erupted, destroying the airport and covering most of the town with heavy ash fall.
There were only 19 hours of warning, but the city and most nearby villages were evacuated before the eruption.
Five people were killed—one of them by lightning from the eruptive column.
The planning and evacuation drills helped keep the death toll low.
Most of the buildings in the south-eastern half of Rabaul collapsed due to the weight of ash on their roofs.
How the East New Britain government coordinated the evacuation exercise should form the basis of a plan readily available to be used in other disasters also.
Most of our educational institutions today are more tuned to turning out workers, rather than engaging in research to add knowledge to PNG’s intellectual resources.
Our attention span is limited and more often than not we are fed absolutely the wrong information on what to do and how to respond to certain problems besetting us individually, corporately and as a nation.
Organising to receive correct information is vital to functioning at peak efficiency to deliver results.
The need for effective records and information management is imperative. Information in governance deals with managing records and information for providing a meaningful solution to present situation.
Researching or gathering information is critical for governance.
Yet there is so little effort and resources spent on information gathering today.
All institutes in the country involved in undertaking research across various disciplines such as the Papua New Guinea National Research Institute; the PNG Cocoa & Coconut Research Institute; the Institute of National Affairs; the Wau Ecology Institute; the PNG University of Technology; the PNG Institute of Medical Research; and the Melanesian Institute should be adequately funded.
Research and knowledge gathering is vital to everyday decision making.