Data, stats, population vital for planning: MP

The National Main Stories

THE exact population of Papua New Guinea is needed for realistic planning and budgeting, Rigo MP Lekwa Gure says.
He told Parliament on Tuesday that the last census was in 2011 and since then the population had been estimated between eight and nine million.
“We don’t know what the real population of PNG is,” he said.
“For effective planning and realistic budgeting, it needs to be based on data and statistics and accurate population. “The population growth in PNG of 3.1 per cent and that happens to be the figure that’s figured in the budgets since 2018 and compared to our economic growth.
“We really need to get a handle on our population, control population with a responsible population policy.” Gure said PNG was sitting on Population Policy Two or Three where no specific figures were specified.
“We cannot expect to control issues around health, education, law and justice sector because we don’t know what our population is.
“Once we control our population we can make effective and good plans for sectors,” Gure said.
He said increasing population does a number of things like:

  • MORE deforestation;
  • DECREASED biodiversity; and
  • INCREASED pollution and emissions.

“Each spike in the global population has measurable impact on the health of the planet so we need to get a handle on this population for future budget and plans as well.” Gure said the overarching of the Sustainable Development Goal was to protect the planet and to do that controlling the population was crucial.