YOUTH

Weekender

Tough call for Kikori youths

By JASON DOM
KIKORI district in Gulf hosts an oil terminal, part of the PNG LNG pipeline and the largest logging project in PNG.
Yet the need for basic service is quite glaring.
The district’s youths are now rising up to tackle the issues affecting Kikori for years. The National Youth Development Authority last month endorsed the Kikori district and LLG youth councils.
Kikori is made up of four LLGs – Baimuru, Ihu, East Kikori and West Kikori – with a population of over 51,000. Their only means of transportation is along the mighty Kikori River using canoes or speed boats. Accessing goods and services remains difficult due to the transportation difficulties and the only big shop operating there is Delta Supermarket.
It is mostly wet all-year-round and this makes road conditions slippery and driving along the new Gulf highway from Kikori to Southern Highlands is dangerous.
Most lowland food crops grown in other parts of the country cannot thrive here except for the sago palm which provides the locals’ stable, supplemented with fish, prawns and wild game that are in abundance.
The district’s social infrastructure like health centres, the airstrip, schools, roads, markets and the district office are in dire need of maintenance.
Kikori is blessed with tilapia, barramundi, prawn, shrimps, mud crabs, cassowaries, wild pigs, bandicoots as well as its sago but has no proper markets for the locals to sell them. A few foreigners of Asian origin residing there have grabbed the opportunity to make money where the local people are unable to.
People on the ground find it difficult to communicate with their government officials when the need arises for basic services.
Many of the young adults pushed out from schools become subsistence farmers in their own villages and do what seems best for them.
The newly elected chairman of Kikori District Youth Council, Ernest Dai Dobson reported that funding allocated for youth activities over the last five years by their MP had usually disappeared along the way in the government processes and never reached them.
But he is grateful to the National Youth Development Authority (NYDA) who stepped in to set up the Kikori district youth council as a sign of change and better things to come.

Kikori district youth with NYDA staff after the launching of Kikori District Youth Council in Kikori.

“NYDA is the national overseer of the youth population in PNG, their coming down to our level earns the utmost respect of the youths of Kikori and their support has given us the courage to come out and start addressing issues our people face,” Dobson said.
The NYDA team spent the whole Independence week at Kikori to establish the four LLG youth councils as well the district youth council whose executives comprising of the chairman, vice chairman, treasurer and secretary were elected amongst them.
The proceedings of the youth council started with registrations of the LLG executives, election of the executives, swearing-in by the provincial magistrate and launching of the District Youth Council and the four LLG youth council’s executives.
The NYDA teams have set youth councils in five provinces so far this year with some more requests pending.
According to the NYDA Act 2014, it is a mandatory for the authority to form youth councils at LLG, district and provincial levels so that youths have fair say in decision making. To successfully establish a youth council, it requires support by NYDA, the provincial administration or DDA, and the Open MPs to provide counter-funding.
In this case of Kikori there was no support from the DDA or the MP which left the NYDA to meet the full cost of the setting up of LLG and district youth councils.
With the Kikori district youth council now in place, the executives are looking forward to:

  • Formulate their constitution and establish capacity building for school dropouts;
  • Use the Future Generations Trust Fund owed to them by the oil, gas and logging companies for their short term activity plans;
  • Utilise local reserved business to improve infrastructure development; and
  • Revive sports groups to help interested athletes in the district.

Kikori is one of the pilot districts for the flagship programme of District Community Development Centres (DCDC) rolled out by NYD’s partner agency the Department for Community Development and Religion.
Establishing the district youth council now paves the way for them to plan for a DCDC.

l Jason Dom is the media officer of the National Youth Development Authority.


How digital technology can resolve problems

By MICHAEL UGLO
DIGITAL technology is simply scientific development of numbers.
The numbers are only zero and one. That means we are not looking at other numbers like 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc.
One may wonder how on scientific development has to do with just 0 and 1. Of course, this is the most stunning advancement with algorithms made in the contemporary world apart from the green revolution and the industrial era which had improved human lives so much.
Binary system
All decisions have to be made based on 0 and 1. Because there are only two figures we are dealing with it is a numbering system called the binary system using mathematical functions and sets with recursive enumerations. Binary simply means two to mean the two digits 0 and 1.
One and zero can resemble any composite that has two parts to mean just the same as one and zero. Some of these are true and false, yes and no, high and low, etc. It is seen that when you are saying yes or no for an answer then the answer is going to be almost perfect with a very high probability of significance and merit.
Definition of digital economy
With digital applications to PNG and its economy it is in fact a choice and in my opinion linked to digital technology. That would mean that all that is expounded about digital technology above can be applied to PNG’s economy. Anything we do like decision-making, budgeting, social security and justice, education, health services, employment, GDP etc will be as perfect as true or false leaving out all reasoning and all human subjectivities.
I am imagining how perfect that economy is going to be and the aftermath of that like savings in the public coffers, fair salaries, cutting wastages and overspending with little or no return or in worse cases, losses. PNG is in fact can to be a rich nation if we tap into this current technology.
Equality, justice, fairness in digital economy
The whole reason to have a government in a country like PNG like the other 250 countries around the world is to exercise equality, justice and fairness in the citizen’s lives. This poses the question, are we doing that with our current approach? The answer is certainly no because even after a fair decision has been made some people will go out complaining. This means that with our current approach we are still endowed with our human subjectivities and biases so we are yet to improve.
The digital technology at our door step is the option to embrace simply because it give us either a yes or no for an answer without unnecessary explanations which bring disrepute to people. It is a common saying that when you talk a lot you will certainly make mistakes although it is very important to talk.
Of course a computer will determine the taxes automatically so there will be nothing like tax avoidance or tax evasion. GDP, GNP and all economic activities will be under the scrutiny of the computer radar so this is going to be very fair, just and equitable for the Government, the common people and the business communities.
Health and education in digital economy
All diagnosis will be computerised or at least data is shared from existing database from technologically advanced nations. Versions of therapies and medications are on the internet so data sharing and coupling the database management systems already in data files and programmes can be accessed under bilateral or multilateral agreements with nations, sharing their data with us through our health ministries and exchange programmes.
If this does not work we can also create our own database for use in the medical field. Appropriate drugs for illnesses suffered by our citizens will be available because the computer will automatically calculate the numbers of patients and what provinces they are from. Thus it will be target-specific with no wastage expected.
The above will save a lot of lives from preventable diseases or professional negligence by health care centres. In the midst of our struggle for world standards in health we do not realise that preventable diseases can be confidently treated because the computer will tell you what medication to give and what not to give. This again avoids human frailty and mistakes creep in.
In education there is going to be much benefit derived like never before. A decision taken by the computer may seem shallow but in reality it is not. Simply because the computer has gone through a lot of algorithm engagements and information processing with all data available or fed to the system to arrive at the decision to be true or false.
For instance, the selection for students to enter secondary schools form primary schools will take into consideration the number of spaces available or the cut-off mark. In the case of any human frailty one can easily go to the system computer to see if the decision was true or false. It will be very difficult for any bias in selections as a computer will make those very important, prejudice-free decisions amounting to only yes or no.
School fees charged will take into account the financial position of a province of the nation to make those decisions. Any selections to the higher learning institutions will also follow the same procedure. There could be incidences of bias when someone alters those computer programmes in which case it would not be because there are security systems in place like PDFs, ciphers and VPNs together with bridges and routers that are among some of the major security platforms that can be used.
No ordinary principal or educationist can alter the computer programmes unless one is a software programmer or developer and again a computer software programmer is disadvantaged with those security strategies. This is the technology idea worth using if we want a fair, vibrant and just society with honest principles embedded in our economy that will make us strong and resilient to progress at an unprecedented rate like never before.
In future articles we will delve into such topics like reasons to modernise PNG economy using digital technology, the scientific, architectural and computerised components of digital economy, and how people and government will benefit from digital technology.

  • Michael Uglo teaches avionics and has authored a science textbook for secondary schools in PNG. He also studied electronics, physics of electronic devices, and calculus at the University of PNG.