Put Papua New Guinea's House in Order
Focus Papua New Guinea has long experienced a dual economy, initially between the estate sector and the rest of the population. From the 1970s mining and 1990s oil enclaves developed, supporting a growing urban population. Government initially discouraged permanent urban settlement, but the hard kina policy and subsequent fiscal indiscipline and under funding for infrastructure and services in the provinces and rural areas, encouraged urban drift, with educational, health and income earning opportunities in rural areas squeezed. Now we have a few bubbling urban centres and service industries, buoyed up by current and prospective enclave mining/hydro-carbon industries. Despite optimism in parts of the business community, there is great frustration in much of the population, feeling forgotten in the apparent narrow –based economic boom and concerned over government’s readiness to side-step procedures (land, labour and environmental) for selected developers. Some concerns are widely share