What maturity is Polye talking?

I REFER to Deputy Prime Minister Don Polye’s diatribe as reported (The National, page 8, Sept 21).
This is equally supported by various chest-beating politicians and so-called senior statesmen during the recent independence celebrations.
Polye is reported to have said that “many countries at 35 did not have the maturity in their development that PNG exhibits today”.
Just by whose standards is he using to compare?
I will give you a good example of a well-managed country.
After the Korean War, the peninsular was divided into South Korea and North Korea.
The Korean peninsular was devastated and completely destroyed.
After the war, South Korean politicians steered their country to prosperity and advanced more in 30 years than what PNG achieved in 35 years.
They have good roads, health and education infrastructure, rural agricultural development, forest management and reforestation, and well-managed public service delivery than Polye’s purported achievements in 35 years.
South Korea became an economic superpower in 40 short years.
They achieved all these without chest beating and they did not have the kind of natural resources that PNG is blessed with – no gold, no copper, no vast forest areas, no oil, etc.
But they had committed and determined selfless leaders and hard working people.
Now, after dressing up in the same traditional costumes and beating the daylight out of the lizard skins on our kundu drums and jumping up and down, we should pause and take stock of the actual development on the ground.
We will see receding development in the form of deteriorating road networks, run-down schools and aid posts, poverty-stricken citizens and the list goes on a negative trend.
Is there real development that we so happily sing and dance every Sept 16?
Is there achievement that we are supposed to be proud of?
Polye should be honest and apologise to the people of Papua New Guinea for his misleading diatribe.
The same goes to those who said the same thing.
The people have lost respect for our elected leaders as seen from the attacks on elected MPs.
We are now entering a very dangerous phase that shows ordinary people are frustrated and can do anything anywhere anytime.

Rural forester
Via email