Matane wants policy to control growth

 By ABIGAIL APINA

FORMER Governor-General Grand Chief Sir Paulias Matane has called on the Government to establish a policy to control population growth in the country.

He said in Kokopo last Thursday the population was growing rapidly and posed great challenges and threats.

“Not long ago we had four million people in the country. I believe this has doubled,” he said.

He said while it “may be good in some ways,” it would create more problems for Papua New Guinea such as an increase in unemployment and the shortage of land for people to settle on.

Sir Paulias called on the people “not to raise more children”.

He said considering that service delivery remained a huge challenge in PNG with many people struggling every day, the Government should not turn a blind eye to the rapid population growth.

He said India had a policy called “We two and two” restricting couples to only two children. 

China, with the largest population in the world, has a “One Child” policy restricting couples to have only one child.

He suggested that PNG should have a similar policy.

“If we can learn from these two countries then we can control our birth rate through a policy,” he said.

He said young people carelessly contributed to the growth through teenage pregnancies.

“This is unfortunate because many of these young people do not know how to control their lives, or manage a family,” he said.