Farmer opens bank account to save up for school fees

By JACKLYN SIRIAS
A father of seven, Willie Megaraka, has, for the first time, opened a bank account to save money for his children’s school fees.
The 46-year-old from Tutubu village in Cape Rodney, Central, said he had not known the importance of saving money until his two elder daughters were accepted to do their secondary education at Mt Diamond Secondary School.
Megaraka and his family are subsistence farmers who travel weekly with their garden produce into Port Moresby to sell at Koki Market.
What little money raised goes towards school fees of his seven children and meeting daily household needs.
Megaraka and his wife pay a PMV fare of K30 per person and a separate fee for their produce of bananas, kaukau, peanuts and coconut.
“In a day, we usually make around K200 which we use to buy our household goods and keep some as savings for our children’s school fees,” he said. Megaraka said because he left school after completing grade 6, he was terrified of going into banks and opening a savings account.
He was at Koki Market last Wednesday when the United Nation Women organisation went there with banks and financial institutions to conduct a bank fair.
The event provided opportunities for vendors to access information on available services and products under the Safe City Project, which is an initiative of UN Women and National Capital District Commission.
Megaraka said: “I decided to pay a visit to the stalls of the different banking institutions like BSP, PNG Microfinance, and MiBank.
“I opened my first-ever savings account with PNG Microfinance Ltd with the aim to save my money to help my children achieve better education, so that they can get a good life later on.”
He said he would be saving as much as he could for school fees for his children.