Population growth

YOUR editorial of Friday, Feb 1 about PNG’s population growth hit the nail on the head.
For as long as our population is growing at this incredibly fast and unsustainable rate, PNG’s development aspirations and efforts are simply futile, waste of time and money, period.
PNG will never develop to become a middle-income country, as alluded to in the Government’s Vision 2050 Policy, unless population growth is controlled.
Many, if not all, countries have now developed to become middle-income or first-world nations on the back of effective population growth control.
China, for instance, was a third-world nation like PNG just 10 years ago, with a huge population and social and economic woes.
Today it is the second largest economy in the World, after the US.
China rose simply because she managed to effectively control her population growth.
The common denominator of nations such as Japan, Australia, Canada, US and the Western European nations with developed economies and high standard of living is low population growth.
On the flipside, all nations with high population growth and struggling to develop and provide decent standard of living for their citizens, are in the category of third-world nations.
Our development success depends heavily on our ability to effectively control population growth.
If we succeed in controlling this single factor, I am sure that about 80 percent of our social and economic woes will disappear overnight, and PNG will rise to become a middle-income nation sooner, rather than later.
The Government (political leaders, bureaucrats and technocrats) should by now realise while the country’s economy is growing annually, this gain is effectively cancelled by unsustainable population growth.
For example, if our economy can only create 10,000 jobs a year, and yet our population produces 50,000 school leavers a year, then the gain of 10,000 jobs is woefully inadequate.
Further, if our Government can afford to build only 100 classrooms to accommodate 5000 pupils a year, and yet our population grows at 50,000 offspring a year, where will the other 45,000 pupils go?
Similarly, if we produce 50 doctors a year, yet we produce 50,000 children a year, then how can we effectively provide good health-care for our people?
Impossible.
We would simply be chasing our own shadows, and still can never catch up with it, no matter how hard we chase.
This is why controlling population growth should be the Government’s top priority.
All else will fail, if this is not done.
A number of policy and practical measures should be introduced to curb unsustainable population growth.
For example, limiting the number of children a female or married couple can have to a maximum of four only: this can be done through vigorous awareness campaigns, or policy initiative.
As soon as a female or couple gives birth to their fourth child, they should be given the option to undergo surgical operation or come under other strict birth-control measures to stop them from producing more babies.
If a couple has more than four kids, the parents should be heavily taxed or denied school fee assistance for additional children.
On the other hand, those with two kids only should have their school fees or medical expenses heavily subsidised, and be given other additional privileges by the Government.
This would be fair.
Why should the rest of the population subsidise the cost of maintaining additional children of people who reproduce uncontrollably.
Finally, population control programmes should be Government-wide, and cross-sectoral responsibility, for both economic and social sectors.
However, the overall coordination and drivers of the population policy should be the social sector: Education, Health, National Planning and Community Development departments.
I very much hope that responsible people in Government would take on this challenge head-on and drive it for the sake of PNG’s development and prosperity.

Simple Wisdom
Kimbe