PNG needs to build more roads

 THE Government, through the Commerce and Industry Ministry, has been promoting the concept of small to medium enterprises (SME) across the country and even in the Pacific region.

This, of course, is the way to go but the promotional work comes way too late. 

Unfortunately, many of Trade Minister Richard Maru’s predecessors did not have a clue how to progress the Papua New Guinean’s enterprising spirit. 

They preferred, as do many other of Maru’s colleagues in Parliament today, catching the fish for their constituents rather than teaching their people to fish. 

As a result, there has grown in PNG society, an unpalatable culture of far too many fish eaters and far too few fishermen.

To our mind, however, an even bigger issue is not about fish or fishermen but getting to where the fish are, in other words, having the means of transportation.

On both sides of a major highway, there live several hundred SME owners.

They are trade store owners, passenger motor vehicle owners, poultry and piggery farmers, vegetable farmers, cash crop farmers and betel nut growers. There is  a wide range of other small businesses.

Put a jetty or a wharf at any point along our extensive maritime shores or along the banks of our river and, immediately, a number of enterprising small businessmen and women will spring into action.

Papua New Guineans 

are naturally hardworking and enterprising. 

What they lack is not so much knowledge as opportunities, market access and transportation means. 

America was settled by Europeans on the east coast.

The huge expanse of the west and the interior of what is now Canada and the United States, was discovered slowly on foot and on horseback. 

Then came the railroad and the boom started. 

Settlements became towns and towns became cities.

Churches, schools and health centres were introduced and businesses blossomed.

The single biggest driver of the boom was transport infrastructure, which in America’s case, was the 

railway. Today, roads crisscross the United States supporting the rail network. 

America today flourishes on the back of its very efficient transport infrastructure. 

So does Europe and Japan.

Development in Malaysia took off when its North/South highway was completed, connecting Singapore in the South to Thailand in the north. 

Transport infrastructure is a fundamental building block for any successful society. 

Its absence automatically renders the society deficient and underdeveloped.

Growing the SME sector in the country and indeed, growing the PNG economy, automatically involves the establishment of a reliable transport infrastructure. 

Indeed, as we have attempted to point out at the start of this discussion, develop the transport infrastructure and the SMEs will grow themselves.

Last Wednesday, a number of highlanders were dumped in rough seas between Morobe and Oro Bay and a couple perished. 

They were out there, poor souls, looking for betel nut in a small motor boat. Others have perished in Milne Bay waters, in Madang and off Wewak.

Now, where there is a road running from Vanimo to Milne Bay and all the way to Daru via Port Moresby, where there is a road running from Lae and Madang down to the Gulf of Papua connecting this first ring road and another connecting the Sepik to the highlands and the Sepik to Western, there would be thousands, not just a handful, engaged in the betel nut trade. A road also needs to link East New Britain to West New Britain.

Highlanders would eat sea food, coconuts, sago and yam while coastal PNG would have fresh vegetables and sweet potato from the highlands. The volume of imports, particularly, fresh food items would drop significantly.

The cost of doing business would drop significantly if there was an extensive network of reliable all-weather roads crisscrossing the country. 

All along the road routes businesses and townships, hotel motel chains and food industries would spring up.

Before PNG can grow the SME sector or any other sector, its first priority must be to provide quality transport infrastructure. 

That is an absolute prerequisite for developing the country’s economy.