New hope emerges

By HELEN TARAWA
COMMUNITY Development Secretary Anna Solomon says the informal economy has a potential of generating about K12 billion a year.
Solomon told the Leaders’ Summit in Port Moresby yesterday that an audit into the informal economy carried out by her department revealed the figure.
She said the informal economy alone would contribute to 20 per cent of GDP.
“If you look at the agriculture and mining, it will go up to 60 per cent because most of them are in the non-cash economy,” Solomon said.
“We need to make sure that they are part and parcel of the work that we are doing.”
The figure, if realised, would make the informal economy a major contributor to nation building when considering PNG’s budget of just over K16 billion this year and revenue of just over K14 billion.
Solomon said most of the informal economic activities take place on the streets and homes where a lot of money was being generated.
“Even the working place, people depend on the informal sector for support because they generate more money in a week compared with the working-class.”
Solomon said there was a trend that the formal working class people were now moving into informal.
This was information that came out of a survey that the department had carried out.
Meanwhile, Solomon said the department had a database for all the churches and non-governmental organisations and the services they provided.
“This is all about coordination so we have the database if you need to know about the churches in the villages and communities,” she said.
“We have to be careful with the NGOs that come to work with us.
“This have been some of our achievements and going forward we are now bringing our community development services, especially family protection and empowering, to the districts.”