Dreaming of economic freedom

 INDEPENDENCE celebrations have come and gone.

As in past years, wherever people gathered to celebrate, there was a spectacular show of unity filled with colour, song and dance.

Credit must be given to schools and colleges where thousands of young Papua New Guineans staged their own events to mark Independence Day.  

Young people aged below 30 were not around that Tuesday, Sept 16, 38 years ago when Australia lowered its flag for the last time to be replaced by the flag of a newly-independent PNG.

But these school children and youths needed no prompting to join the older generations to mark this day and, in some cases, they took the lead in the festivities.

In the mood for celebration, the thousands who attended the festivities may have forgotten the speeches delivered on Independence Day, some broadcast over the airwaves.  

It was of course no time for any sombre reminder of what must be done to see us climb up the United Nations human development index.

Yet, there was some very pertinent food for thought in some of these speeches.

Rabaul MP Allan Marat, reminded us that, as a nation, we were still mentally and morally lacking and the goal for a peaceful country remained a far-off dream.

It therefore calls for some serious soul-searching to correct the many social ills this nation is confronted with.

In Port Moresby, the University of PNG student representative council president called on fellow citizens to embark on journeys that would lead to economic independence.  

Political independence, we already enjoy.

It was now incumbent on all citizens to strive for economic independence, he said.  

It would have been a nice patriotic feeling to wear a good quality shirt or cap made from imported material but produced right here in PNG. 

Yet, almost all of the Independence paraphernalia were manufactured elsewhere.

Small point it may be but it eloquently underlines a big dream – that of economic independence.

The sea of red black and gold on Independence Day, and the few days prior and after, was a pleasing sight to behold.  

The thousands of men, women, and especially children, proudly wearing the national colours evoked a fresh burst of pride in the nation.

And, if you did the arithmetic, selling the T-shirts would have been a lucrative business in the period leading up to the big day.

But it is more than likely the money raked in grew wings and flew to another country.

It’s been 38 years and we have not gotten some basic things right when other nation have made remarkable achievements over the same period.

Last Thursday, speakers at the first seminar by Sharp Talk, the country’s largest social media forum, also made reference to economic independence through the small and medium enterprises (SME) sector.

One speaker said that however much he admired Trade Commerce and Industry Minister Richard Maru’s passion to drive the SME sector, there were still impediments in the way.

These were in the form of very high costs to business.  

If successful, existing businesses were crying over the encumbrances, chances for a small business starting and staying in the game were rather slim.   

Impediments such as the complex and slow business registration processes, the high cost of electricity and perhaps the greatest of them, the high cost of renting space were identified.

Access to finance is still a near impossibility for new and aspiring PNG business people. 

One other disturbing point raised at the forum was about Papua New Guineans’ “racist” attitude towards other Papua New Guineans fronting up at government agencies or bank counters.

This was a white Papua New Guinean who said it was only her skin colour that helped her get faster service than others.

Economic independence, if it is to become a reality, is best generated by the SME sector.  

An initial step to that still far-off dream of the average Papua New Guinean to have  sufficient money in the bank to enjoy financial freedom should be removing impediments to starting and sustaining successful SMEs. 

We must have a better story to tell on Independence Day, 2014.