PNG doesn’t need more investors

PAPUA New Guineans have got used to and fed up with rhetoric emanating from individuals and organisations who play proxy to promoting foreign interests.
An article in Wednesday’s The National “PNG needs to lure Investors” by Paul Barker of Institute of National Affairs (INA), is an example in that regard.
He challenges the Government’s reforms on policy as well as legal and fiscal aspects.
It would be unethical for investors to use landowners or interest groups and organisations to promote their propaganda in the print and electronic media to influence government decisions and policies.
Better still, organisations such as INA should refrain from being used by external forces.
PNG does not need new investors nor the need to lure one.
What PNG needs now is to deal with the existing investments and tilt the balance around in its favour to align with Marape’s platform of taking back PNG.
Marape already has so much mess at hand which were created by his predecessors that need to be fixed and cleared, even if it means to review resource laws, including investment decisions and agreements.
The Government will not change its position on Porgera, P’nyang, Papua LNG or other projects in the list for that matter.
The process has already begun and we just have to be content with it and move forward.
One has to take a radical approach to turn this country around from a downward trend.
We have to do it today when we still have energy left, because tomorrow would be too late to do anything.
As the saying goes, “It’s better to die standing than when you are down on your knees”.
The quest for investment in terms of exploiting and expropriating natural resources has cost Papua New Guinea dearly, losing more than three quarters (70 per cent) of its world class resources to foreign companies. The Government has to change this downward trend.
Four decades have lapsed without having to realise the intended goals prescribed in the preamble of the constitution.
It is a scenario where the best part of the harvest is all taken out abroad, and just to keep the heads above the water, we have no choice but to make-do with what’s left off behind by the so-called investors.
Folks from the old school should embrace change.
One has got to be positive to grasp the big picture.
Tighten the seat belts and no need to cry foul and panic.
We’ll cross the bridge when we come to it.
The world was built by people who crossed bridges in their minds long before anyone did.
The only way forward for PNG to break new grounds and move into uncharted territory is to contain the temporary pain and impacts caused by the Marape reforms and look beyond the immediate and see the big picture.

Sekinolo Sawala,
Sirinumu Dam