PNG strives to meet MDG

PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill told the United Nations General Assembly that PNG is still endeavouring to achieve the eight-point Global Millennium Development Goals.

On some fronts it has done well but in other areas it has fallen behind.

The important issue is that the MDG is now firmly on the national agenda and that is something that was not there three years ago.

But can the goals be really achieved?

That question can be answered only in how the government tackles the fundamental goal of the MDG, which is poverty reduction.

The principle goal of the MDG is to half or rid the globe of poverty by 2015, now a mere four years away.

Is PNG rich or is it poor?

Or is it both rich and poor?

Are Papua New Guineans poverty stricken in the way of those in sub-Saha­ran countries or parts of Asia?

Poverty is not merely the lack of food but a collection of many factors.

One definition might be the lack of that which is essential for the wholesome growth and well-being of the human person or of a community.

The World Bank considers poverty on the basis of how much money is available to a person within one year.

In its estimation, the average Papua New Guinean villager earns about K350 within a year which it judges to be well below the poverty line. By its ruler PNG is at the lower end of the poverty line.

But as we mentioned in this space yesterday Sir Mi­chael Somare, when prime minister told Australian au­diences that nobody is hungry in PNG, that everybody has food. That also is true. Seen from one angle there is no poverty in PNG, from another there is abject poverty in PNG.

Papua New Guineans might not have cash – which is the measure of wealth the world over – but they each own (individually or as a group) mountains of tracts of land, the largest indicator of wealth anywhere on earth.

Every Papua New Guinean can be self-sufficient in providing for his immediate basic needs if all his lands were worked or if those lands could easily be mobilised into cash.

From that perspective, no Papua New Guinean is poor. Indeed, he is far richer than other people in most nations of the world. Land, one of the most important assets, has also been the most neglected of issues – placed in the “holding” or “pending” tray by successive administrations.

One inquiry was held into lands matters in 1973 – two years before Independence and since then lands matters have been given a wide berth. One government tried to deal with it – the Chan/Haiveta government when it tried to get a World Bank-funded Lands Mobilisation Program­me into operation and faced a nationwide backlash which ended only with the government’s utter trouncing at the general election in 1997.

Land, which counts in the accounts books of government, comprises only 3% of those parcels that were acquired during colonial era and passed on to the PNG go­vernment at Independence.

This then comprises the basis of all social and economic development in PNG or at least as it is accounted for in government’s books. The total Gross National Product or Gross Domestic Product or any other economic measures are for all those activities conducted on this alienated 3% of land.

The rest of the 97% of land in customary hands is unaccounted for. This is the land that will make Papua New Guineans jump from lower middle income country to a rich nation if only the activities on them could be mea­sured by normal economic measuring standards. But they cannot be because the economy revolves around capital and, right now, PNG customary land cannot be moved from its present phy­si­cal form to capital.

Customary land cannot be easily valued and be transferred to cash as is land which has been alienated. This is the area which the new administration of Peter O’Neill must concentrate on if poverty is to be alleviated, if the economic fundamentals of the country were to be changed.

Leaving customary land untouched, unlegislated over and, therefore, immobile as a unit of value, will leave PNG at the lower end of the po­verty scale. Land and its competent management are crucial in building a planned and progressive national economy and social development.

If land acquisition and development are properly controlled, the development of wealth, employment and, therefore, improvement in all social indicators will follow.

OP/ED