Inflation fuels bad habbits

Letters

IN Papua New Guinea (PNG), average long term inflation has been around 7 percent per annum since Independence.
This letter focuses on the health impact of inflation in PNG.
Inflation is an average change in the overall price of goods and services in PNG over a period of time, which can be a month, quarter, or a year. It affects the ability of people or institutions to buy goods and services (purchasing power of money).
The purchasing power of money will rise when inflation falls, or decline when inflation increases.
More goods and service can be purchased when inflation falls, or less when inflation goes up.
Inflation affects the lives of people especially those living in the towns and cities in PNG through the purchasing power of money.
Various expenditure items in different price groups such as fuel, electricity, food, accommodation, rental, beverages, tobacco, betel nut, and so on, are combined together to produce the average inflation data published by the National Statistical Office of PNG.
The most daring feature of inflation in PNG is that alcohol, tobacco, and betel nut have the most significant impact on the annual movement in inflation.
This letter indicates that there is a large and growing proportion of people moving into drinking, smoking, and betel nut consumption every year (bad habit population), which is very obvious in the towns and cities.
Looking ahead, this growing bad habit population will:

  • Die out early before they reach the age of 60;
  • incur significant medical bills for their relatives and the Government, because the recovery time for the bad habit population is much longer compared to the healthy population;
  • further fuel inflation which will exert more pressure on the tax payers and Government to fund and provide better health care services, which is particularly more acute in rural areas of PNG where 85 per cent of the population lives; and,
  • Contribute to the already deteriorated state of poor quality of health services in PNG.

PNG needs to do something drastic to curb the growing number of people, especially the young generation, from alcohol consumption, smoking, and betel nut chewing that are fuelling inflation which is contributing to the poor quality of health services in PNG.

Concerned Taxpayer
Port Moresby