What is PNG’s actual population?

WHAT is the real population of Papua New Guinea?
The population has been a sticky issue.
When Australia had 16 million and New Zealand had 3 million people, PNG had 1.5 million people.
Ten years later, it was Australia and New Zealand at 18 million and 3 million people while PNG doubled its population to 3 million.
By 2000, the PNG population went up to 6 million.
By 2002, the voting population was at 9 million.
In 2011, we heard in official statements that the population has reached 8 million and Australia’s was below 23 million while New Zealand’s was less than 5 million.
The figures does not seem right.
The common roll in my village has 2,500 people but my own count or total ballots cast is often below 1,500.
I noticed that some villages are shrinking in the number of people but I see an increase in urban settlements.
Has the population really increased by such huge number or even quadrupled from 1980 or is it a problem of actual counting?
Apart from the National Statistical Office’s census, has there been a second or independent confirmation of say four census divisions in our four regions?
Either the national identification (NID) programme is very slow or the progress made may have led us to some new data.
So far, NID has reached a million mark but registration as per Highlands’ provinces is very low in proportion to the current population figures.
It is something the Government has to support by using NID to verify the population census and common roll including taxpayer and employment figures. Going by past census bureau trend, we could be 10 million by 2020 census or five million by the NID registrations.

Wilson Thompson
President – Farmers & Settlers
Association Inc