Launch of PNG currency a team effort

FORMER Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan says the launch of the PNG currency 45 years ago was a team effort.
Sir Julius, who is New Ireland Governor, said the introduction of the country’s kina and toea currency on April 19, 1975, came amidst sceptism from foreigners and Papua New Guineans alike.
Then minister for internal finance, Sir Juilus worked with an expert team to prepare the successful launch of the currency.
He established a currency committee which included the founding governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea, the late Sir Henry ToRobert as chairman, PNG’s first secretary for finance Sir Mekere Morauta, Prof Ross Garnaut and other public and private sector officials who worked tirelessly in organising the currency change-over from the Australian dollar to PNG’s very own kina and toea.
When the kina was first issued, PNG had not reached full political Independence as yet.
However, the existence of the nation’s own money, together with the other measures the self-governing administration took to establish control of the economic life, gave the country-to-be a real measure of practical independence.
Even after Independence, though, many still did not seem to accept the kina as “real money”.
Sir Julius recognised this, and shortly after Independence took another bold step by raising the value of the kina by five per cent against the dollar.
When people saw that they could buy more goods with the kina than with the dollar, all the dollars they had been hoarding were changed into kina.