The Kina TT sell rate is dropping fast in the last couple of days USD 0.4550, USD0.4531, USD0.4526 This is showing sign that this government is throwing the economy down the drain K500million deficit in 9 months is something to worry about

Yes the problem list still stand tall regardless of K76billion spend in the last 10 years....constant power blackouts, incompetent Telikom png with unreliable services, Papua New guineans being paid under colonial pay grade as compared to their expatriate colleague with little experiences, roads system crumbling down still no company has found innovation in building tar roads that will last for more than a year

Housing and health care is a problem for all urban areas in PNG and the worst is still in the rural areas government is not smart enough to develop sustainable agriculture project that can equal the magnitude of the LNG and other mining projects so to save our mineral resources for future industrialization and manufacturing for our national interest and consumption.

Why are Papua New Guineans having a sense of being marginalised and inferior and claiming to be so cheap so thus accepting bribes for as low as K20 lunch money to engage in corrupt practices? When can we think that the current value of all the resources in our country is worth 100 Trillion plus and that is enough to stand up and say that we are NOT that CHEAP!

And start acting responsibly to move our country, why do Papua New Guineans recieve cheap bribes from Asians and other foreigners? this is a crime of treason and betrayal of our sovereignty why do people continue to migrate from the villages to the town regardless of the K10million DSIP fund to service the districts and rural areas?

Why do public servants within the system continue to engage in false claims and defraud the state...Is the government audit team being 10times smarter enough to catch the fraudulent activities that are going on in our public service in each provinces and districts?

Why is 98% of each provincial budgets are used up as administrative costs and nothing gets left every year to bring and sustain services to the rural areas? Why are so many productive age group youths and people out on the streets selling 40 lus and K1 buai??

Why do 3000 women die each year from cervical cancer in PNG??? Why are teachers continue to be paid less even tough they are the public servants that does alot of sacrifices for this country? really nothing has changed no leader is smarter in this day and age to take PNG into the industrial age.

Peter O'Neill you took part in the NPF fraud with Jimmy Maladina and then you were appointed Public Service Minister and involved in a failed public service housing scheme at 8 mile (POM) and now you think you will save this country?? you have to start thinking now before you rescind into stagnancy and this country will fall deeper than you can try lifting it!


Source:

Papua New Guinea Blogs

1. Bitumen in the tropics is attacked by oil eating bacteria that causes faster deterioration. Developed countries in colder areas don't have this problem. The only real solution is not to use bitumen. A study many years ago in the Solomons found it was more cost-effective and led to just as functional of roads to use karanas that was frequently rolled to prevent potholing. Despite that being a more appropriate technology, we don't accept it because of the cargo cult thinking that unless our roads look like what occurs in Australia, we are not "developed". Concrete roads are much longer lasting and much much much more expensive. They are generally not cost effective for PNG which still, even in our towns, has relatively light road traffic.

2. The thickness of the bitumen for PNG roads is determined by short term economic considerations, not long term road use considerations. Go overseas and compare against the thickness of bitumen overseas. The thickness of the highlands highway is less than what you'd find for a quiet residential city street in Cairns.

3. Our cost of the raw material (bitumen) is excessive because the Morauta government signed a 30 year agreement with interoil that interoil can charge Papua New Guineans for PNG origin oil products as if those oil products or crude oil had been shipped all the way from Singapore. This is in comparison to other oil exporting countries that subsidise the cost of oil products to their citizens, making everything more affordable (PMV transport, etc.).

4. No bitumen road will last without a well engineered drainage system. Our wet tropical climate is our curse in ensuring our bitumen roads are well drained but on top of that our road engineers look at short term economic considerations and don't put the money into proper drains that would accommodate the exceptional 10 or 20 year floods.

5. We as a society have a problem understanding the concept of maintenance. This is because our tradition is just to take whatever we need from our environment for free whenever what we're using wears out. We are inherently wasteful because of the natural resource wealth most areas of PNG have enjoyed for countless generations. Thus, we don't re-oil our bitumen roads to prevent cracks, when cracks appear we don't immediatly patch them, and when cracks become potholes, we let the potholes become larger until it destroys the entire roadbed. Even rich developed countries could never afford to keep rebuilding entire road beds over and over again the way we do because we put close to zero money into maintenance.


We reap what we sow and thus get back what we put into our infrastructure. When we ignore the natural curses we suffer as a wet, constantly warm tropical country with naturally unstable geography, we will suffer. When we save on short term costs by poor road design and putting no money into maintenance, we end up paying more for infrastructure. When our government becomes pamuk to foreign companies who promise us certain services, we end up paying more for our own processed PNG resources than is ethically fair.

Excellent Analysis.

I think it time the new government overhaul everything in this country, it must do so from the way government has been conducting businesses with foreign companies and internal stakeholders.

Oneil government now must establish a legal committee to review the constitution of the country and patch all the loop holes to suit the current development and foreseable future trends.

We must reestablish all the basic infrastructures including the health facitilites, the educational facilities, the road networks, bridges, agriculutre, banking and loan facilities etc.

Lets assume the country's independence day of 1975 as today and review all the trade agreements, and everything agreements signed since 1975 till last year and start all over again.

Enforce those laws and trade and business agreements that are reasonable, meaningful and justifiable and review and adjust the ones that are irrelevant and that will not benefit the entire nation.

Lets start creating something for ourselves and manage it ourselves rather than relying too much on foreign especially Australians, New Zealanders, Amercicans, Europeans and the Asians.

We as a soverign nation must now start to take care of the very small thing like the health facilities, schools, bridges, roads, learning institutions, etc. We must maintain them and keep them in good and workable or serviceable condition.

Thanks for the good discussions so far.


Nationalist

I don't know how many times you need to hear this message before it sinks in, but let me try.

The government has no incentive whatsoever to engage in any of the reforms you talk about.

The reason is that we are a democratic government and as long as the people blindly believe every statement and promise of the leaders, they will never put any pressure on leaders to do anything different.

I believe that for the last quarter century or more we have had qualified road engineers in the Dept Works who know exactly what the problems are and the solutions.

However, there is no political will to implement any of these things because the politicians have no political pressure to do so.

Because as citizens we are both largely ignorant (even those of us with a lot of schooling) and basically cowards at standing up to our corrupt government to the extent necessary to frighten our leaders into truly making reform, NOTHING (read that word again: NOTHING) is going to change in the foreseeable future.

You guys are spinning around in the same circles as the generation before you and the generation before that because there seems to be a blind spot in our thinking in finally figuring out the core reason for all the problems we have: a complacent, basically ignorant population.


But keep spinning around in those old old circles, the politicians are happy that you're occupying yourselves with discussions that won't threaten their power one bit.

So Mr. Reality Check,

do you want the country, the people and the leaders to continue leave in ignorance? Or you just want those who have some heart for the nation to keep their mouth shout because you see and beleive that nothing will change the way the people think and perceive and that leaders will continue to take advantage of the poor people.

What are your bright suggestions?? Propose and enlighten us with some of your bright ideas and suggestions. Some of us in this forum are learning alot from each other and the information we obtain are value for ourselves, our family, community, districts, provinces and the country as a whole.

Things do not change over within a short period of time.. It takes ample time for change to occur. And some of us who are patriotic about our beautiful country and radical about situations believe that exchange of information is very helpful for everyone of us. Because information is ofcourse power.

But in your own personal opionion may be boring to you, however, just leave the discussions alone. Do not make negative comments to kill our interests and desire for discussions to access information.

Thanks

internet is not the place to effectively educate our population!

Those stealing the wealth of this country know very well that the way you're going about this will never yield positive results before they have stolen what they wanted and retired in Australia.

Go straight to the bottom line - people action. The only way this will occur is for some brave soul (you? not me!) to stand up in public in POM and start speaking of the need for change under the slogan 'enough is enough' or something like that. You don't have to mention or organise marches for them to be demanded by the public ("let's take to the streets!!!!") if the leader speaker is effective enough at explaining the issues to the people.

It all starts in POM, in person, in Tabari place and other public gathering locations and NOT on the internet!

Until that happens we are spinning our wheels, wasting our time and our corrupt opponents seem to see that much more clearly than we do!

If you want to have effective discussions on the internet, focus specifically on how to develop a peaceful, people's power revolution and overthrow of the current corrupt government. There's no need to talk about anything else at this point.

An unmanageable deficit is the last thing we need - more kina printing, higher taxes and duties, lower purchasing power. And we are not immune to hyperinflation. I wish these guys would start focusing on strengthening the kina, especially when so much of our daily consumption is imported from overseas. Then to make matters worse, large mining companies come into play and upsurp supply pushing the cost of living higher still.

Gov spending, taxes, duties, etc, are too high for a government that lacks historic performance. There is too much time spent worrying about the government and not enough time spent nurturing the private sector and catering for it. Nurture the private sector first because this is where a nations true wealth creation lies. So basic yet so confusing for our forever drunk and womanising politicians.

The most effective way to strengthen the kina is for fools like you to stop buying so much imported food.

zzz, actually that's not "the most effective way" but at least your tried.