Marape: Hardworking farmers will get right price for commodities

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EVERY citizen of PNG owns land, unlike in other countries, and the Government will ensure hardworking farmers who till their land get the right price for their agricultural commodities, Prime Minister James Marape says.
“I want hardworking citizens in PNG to become millionaires, 80 per cent of the people rely on land but are dependent on the 20 per cent who have some form of formal income to solve their financial needs,” he said.
“Although the 80 per cent own land, they do not fully utilise the land to make money.
“My Government wants to make them have money in their pockets.”
Marape urged people not to believe in handouts, free education and health services “because nothing is free in the world”.
“When I took office, I wanted to make resources become available for you to be productive as it is my Pangu Party’s dream,”
Marape said the Government would remove impediments in the coffee industry and stabilise coffee price to be right for the growers, which was his priority.
“The Government will establish a national export agency for all commodities, including coffee, to allow hardworking farmers to get the right price,” he said.
“We are building enabling infrastructures so right price can be accesse.
“The Government had released K166.5 million to MPs in the district services improvement programme funds. This is not a free money for MPs, K1 million for agriculture and K500,000 for small-medium enterprises (SME) are in the package.
“You can see your MPs and access these funds in the district.”
The plan titled “national coffee development road map 2020-2030 and CIC strategic business plan” are focused on transforming the multi-million kina coffee industry to a multi-billion kina industry by 2030.
“CIC aims to produce three million bags of coffee by 2030,” Marape said.
“At the moment, we are producing 600,000 to 700,000 bags which is far less than what we produced in 2011 – above 1 million bags.” he said.
“We want our people to go back into coffee copra, cocoa, oil palm and other cash crop commodities.
“The Government has put K200 million in Bank South Pacific, Kina Bank and National Development Bank from which people can get loans to do agri-economic activities. I do not believe in free handouts, we have to work hard to get money.”

6 comments

  • PANGU’s original dream, like most socialist parties around the world, was to provide the citizens of its country with free health care and education. It is an indication of how corrupted the party has become that Marape now admits to abandoning that goal.

  • Way forward for the country. Start injecting money into the agriculture than lip service.

  • The easiest part is to draw up plans. No hard work. No research. A lot of copy and paste stuff……….?? Implementation is the toughest part. The last CIC road map was a failure (2010 – 2020) with only 40% achieved.

  • That is what we dream for, the country economy and livelihood lies on Agriculture. Powerful leader, MP J Marape.
    The development of our country entirely rely on Agriculture so lets move it forward..

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