Reflecting on independence

WE sat down in the forever blackout Port Moresby city and I hear the neighbours playing the famous Saugas song, Sindaun Bagarap, echoing the windy night, and betel nut buyers complaining about the hike in the prices of goods.
Then I thought about Papua New Guinea turning 48 in a few days’ time.
The question I asked my small brother Braigi, how have we progressed so far in the last 48 years as a nation?
He said “namji (brother), there are so many challenges we had as a nation and I am very concerned”.
The discussions went throughout the night until our betel nut supply had run out.
I thought, maybe I’ll write something as a reflection we had that night.
PNG got its Independence from Australia in 1975.
Thanks to our founding fathers that we didn’t fight for it like other countries did.
Even though given free, the Australians still doubted how Papua New Guineans would run this country.
In the lead up to independence, we had a constitutional planning committee who had already planned our development pathway.
A path that was going to be centred around the people, localisation and an economy driven by Papua New Guineans based on equal distribution of wealth, rural development and respect for one another and the environment.
These virtues eventually made the five national goals and directive principals and now found in the Constitution.
However straight after the independence, our politicians backed by some powerful local elites and foreigners opted for a development path that was based on resource extraction.
The belief was that foreign owned companies would be brought into extract our resources and sell them in international markets and the proceeds would be used to fund economic development for the nation as a whole.
That has become our development path since then until now.
As we approach 48 years of independence, have we realised our goals? Our discussions concluded that, we have not benefitted.
The rural majority do not benefit and the indicators are very obvious.
We have so many mines, oil, gas, forestry and oil palm projects all around the country with very little to show for. Our people’s lives are worse off than before.
The promises of these projects on employment, benefits and better lives hasn’t been realised.
Yet we are forced to free up our only important asset, our customary land for development, only to suffer more.
This has been repeated over the last 48 years. Our Prime Minister when in France visited Total Energy executives spoke highly about Papua LNG and the benefits it would bring to the economy.
Well this is not new, we saw that happen to PNG LNG.
We have seen similar promises made in all sectors.
We are misled to believe that it is our development.
It’s not our development. It’s their development and their benefits.
Why are we not the next Dubai as promoted by a governor? Why?
We should have been better off by now with more foreign reserves, more downstream processing of our resources especially fuel, sufficient supply of medical drugs and facilities and more money circulating in our country?
I think we have some answers to those questions.
Firstly, these foreign owned companies are here to make profit.
These big companies bank their profits in offshore tax havens and monies laundered, facilitated by corrupt individuals and organisations.
We are only given bones to fight over.
Why are we still believing our politicians and economic hit men who pretend to represent us in project negotiations and signing of agreements? It’s about time we should be rising up and start asking tougher questions and be demanding answers.
Secondly, corruption is a huge problem in PNG and has denied basic health and education services from reaching our people, most are rural based.
Our annual CPI scores are some of the worst in the region.
Half of our development budget are mismanaged by MPs, bureaucrats and those in authorities or even squandered.
These are all evident in daily news, court documents and in the tax payer funded series of inquiries including the Finance Department and UBS Inquiries.
We need to get rid of corruption and greed within our society, only can we see basic services reaching our people.
Our 94 districts receive K10 million each per year with nothing to show for.
There are no financial and acquittals how these funds are being used.
The Auditor-General’s Office has repeatedly stated that.
There are also no five development plans for the district that should guide how developments should benefit the constituents.
As of now, only 11 out of 94 districts have a five-year plan.
My nephew Randy then asks. “So what can be done now? How can we better our country? I am so worried thinking about all that we have discussed”.
We then discussed solutions that we thought would address the current status of our country.
People should be made the centre of the development.
Stop forcing Papua New Guineans to free up their customary lands
It is time for the people to revolt. Enough is enough

*Kikibakik means folk tale in Binandere Language of Northern

Eddie T Paine