It’s illegal but no one cares

The National Weekender

By PETER NUKUNTS
SO this is the PNG attitude and its detrimental cultural practice of lazing around, doing nothing apart from the informal service activities like selling betel nut and cigarettes.
Loitering is punishable under the Summary Offences Act but is that law policed? Someone kicking a stray dog on the street is nothing to a Papua New Guinean but is an offence under the Summary Offenses Act and one can be charge with “Cruelty to an animal”.
Then again, that stray, as abandoned as it may look, is someone’s dog and may provoke violence if the owners are around. But isn’t it the right thing to do by looking after it well, keeping it well-fed and kept indoors, a notion that is nonexistent in a Papua New Guinean’s general thinking.
Most of such laws are dormant if not applied.
So if the law has it its way and policemen are abreast with policing the law, these people would be arrested and charged for loitering, apart from what they are already familiar with, that is NCDC’s laws against littering and public trading of betel nut and cigarettes in public office areas.
Let’s take a walk to the pavement beside the Lands department headquarters along Waigani Drive, and a short distance from Vulupindi Haus. That pavement has now been turned into a mini informal market of sorts. Isn’t that the right thing to do, you would wonder.
The people who are engaging in such trade on the pavement are mostly Highlanders, of which, the majority of them are Helas and a good number of them are from Western Highlands and others are from places in between from Eastern Highlands Chimbu.
Their reasons for congregating around are many. The Western Highlanders are following up on land compensation claims while the Helas are there for similar reasons but specifically to check if records are properly maintained and kept for integrated land groups (ILG) back home so they can get seed capital funding from developers of the gas projects. The Chimbus and Eastern Highlanders are there to see their political masters for some programmed funds of some sort. This waiting and expectation they have become so accustomed to; if you like, it is their second job at best.
Among that group, you see mothers with breastfeeding kids and some as young as two to three years olds clinging on to their mothers. You wonder if they care to treat themselves to a decent breakfast or ever care for a deserving shower prior to coming to the Lands Department pavement to bask in the sun and the scorching heat of Port Moresby.
Those mothers and others are there to sell betel nut and cigarettes to public servants as well as those paper consultants while food and drinks are sold by others who seem a bit more organised.
Cigarette and betel nut sellers come as early as 7 to 8am, the clock in time for public servants and finish together with them at 4.06pm.What is worrying is seeing mothers with kids among the group of sellers there. Wouldn’t it be sensible to let go that opportunity to young males who can run from the police if need be.
To a first timer in Moresby or a visitor for that matter, it is a routine chore in this part of the city just like it is happening all around the city. Old habits die hard, they say, and these traders will be here for the long haul so long as business is thriving.
What they make is a mere stake to just put food on the table. I also enquired if they made enough to think of bigger responsibilities like airfares and school fees and was told; “Mipla tingim kaikai blo mipla tasol, city hard life ya.”
It was at that point I thought a stupid attitude has consumed them so they don’t seem reasonable and have no due care for the laws or respect for other people. We have become an enemy unto ourselves.
The other pertinent question on anyone’s mind would be if these informal traders will ever get back to where they came from. I do not want to ask them for obvious reasons of cash flow accessibility options in the city.
It would also be safe to presume there are second, third or even fourth generations of these kind of people here in the city. Hence, for these informal traders to go back to where they came from is far-fetched.
In addition to the woes of such scene is also by-standers engaging in card gambling activities which would blow your mind away. Sanity is obviously missing and a sad reality is an overall mindset change in these people is definitely non-negotiable.

  • Peter Nukunts is a freelance writer.