PNG can Earn more from its Natural resources by Learning From China.
By GABRIEL G RAMOI LLB
China is said not be a nation state but a State encompassing a civilisation that is now re asserting itself as a central power and a middle kingdom under the direct mandate of heaven. According to sinologist like the former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by 2019 China will become the first non European power since the last 300 year going back to the reign of King George the II of England to sit in the apex of world power and domination . As PNG moves to host the APEC Leaders meeting in 2018 what can we learn from China and of our own experience with the Westminster Model of representative parliamentary democracy and Liberal economic theory and what do we hope to achieve in the next 3 years in particular to show case to the world in 2018.
Firstly PNG cannot showcase its tribal fights , its lawlessness, its unimaginable level of violence again its women in particular and nor do we want to show case to the world our level of urban poverty spurred on by a massive shift in rural urban demographics over the last 12months into Port Moresby, Mt.Hagen, Lae and Madang in particular. It is indeed positive improvement since the looting of Shops in Port Moresby last month to see Powes Pakop and Janet Sape taking control over the Alcohol agenda and defining it as the most pervasive single contributor to the breakdown in social control in our urban societies and to outlaw it in our residential areas to bring it under control .The next level of challenge is to locate and build new housing tenements to shift our working population out of settlements over the next three years before APEC2018 and to destroy all Urban Slums and repatriate all unemployed people out of our cities to State own farms.
It augurs well in this respect for the State to revisit the SABL concept and to enter into proper JVs with Land owners to develop these leases and to employ our many urban squatters into a massive program of State run agriculture program centred around these SABL in areas of low population density. This is State capitalism at a level that has seen China lift up tens of millions of its people out of Poverty & now placing China at the apex of world domination. In the PNG Context it will mean our Districts must plan ahead to use their DSIP Funds to invest in Businesses in Public Private Partnership hat can assist their LLG’s and districts and Provinces raise funds to contribute towards improving the living conditions of their people at the ward level for the provision of housing, clean running water and electricity.
This has been the process going on in China since 1982 that has transformed China. It also means assisting villages to accessing commerce and e-commerce in particular in a way that Alibaba the largest trading Portal has assisted China Rural People sell their products to the world. We must learn from China and introduce State capitalism at a level that can absorb the labour force coming out of all our Educational Institution and also those displaced by tribal conflicts and land shortages and natural disasters. The uncertainty ahead in the health of the world economy alluded to by the Prime Minister in his New Year message to the Nation is caused by China as it asserts its position as the worlds next dominant world power. China’s trading partners such as Australia have abandon the United States Dollars as the preferred currency of Trade by doing direct currency swaps to pay for each others goods and services with many Governments and Central Banks now concerned about what currency and natural resources and precious metals in particular that they can invest their sovereign and pension funds into to preserve their wealth away from the United Dollars in this uncertain times ahead. This leads directly for PNG to possibly embrace a Gold Standard for PNG by 2018 .
Two outstanding geo-political commentators of our time on the rise of China as a World Power, John Mearsheimer from the Chicago University school of Politics and Joseph Nye of the Kennedy School of Public policy at Harvard University have give the word two diametrically opposed view on what lays in the decade ahead for the world and for countries such as ours as we see China in our life time replaces the United States as a dominant world power. The latter’s theory is that the shift in world domination will not occur peacefully as one power replaces another , while the former’s view is that the USA will still be the dominant world power for some time yet.
Many nations subscribe to Mearsheimer’s view including Germany who have in recently weeks through their Central Banks began redeeming their Gold held by the United States as insurance for their currencies against an anticipated collapse of the United States Dollar as world trading and reserve Currency. George Soros’s prediction that 2015 will see the decline of the US Dollar has resulted in the USA and its allies over recent months discouraging the world from moving away from the Dollar to precious metal by ensuring that the price price of Gold, Silver and now oil remain low. This strategy is directed at China and its allies notably Russia and Iran to ensure that they do not undermine the United States Dollar by hoarding precious metals & oil in propping up the convertibility of the Rimnimbi against the United states Dollar.
There a suggestion that the United states Dollar in real terms measured against it Gold Stock may be highly exaggerated by as much as US$16 Trillion with China holding over US$3Trillion in its Foreign Reserves which China on its part is anxious to divest itself from this burden and is willing to invest heavily in the resource sector in countries such as ours. This in itself is good for PNG and we should embrace investment from China into this important sector particularly in mining, energy and in infrastructure development. . while the battle for world domination is played out by China and the USA in the international market place , PNG would do well to revisit its resource development regime and to ensure greater direct participation in its resource sector particularly its Gold and Silver Stock.
This two commodity will become more important in the event of the decline of the US dollar. It goes without saying that PNG must seriously look at backing the Kina with a Gold . It seems inconceivable that as a country that exports Gold we do not a bullion deposit held by our central Bank. Well the time is now right for the country to move into that direction and to importantly take control of our Gold and Silver resources in places like Frieda and to nationalise this resource if we have to for the purpose of securing our national interest and off cause in paying fair market compensation for this resource . Other challenges include the county ,s Social Mapping of the Free Education Generation.
By 2018 PNG should be able to socially map out the next generation of our population now attending schools under our Governments Free education program and to effectively plan for this generation for the future in a way better that the lost decade of the 1990’s . To achieve this PNG needs to embrace the digital and information age by ensuring that it is cheap and widely accessible by the masses. In this regards PNG must revisit its Satellite program and move away from leasing satellite transponders to owning its own Communication Satellite and to place it in our stationary Geo Orbit before 2018. To acquire this technology PNG can work with the China and even the Europeans and the USA to achieve this goal before APEC 2018 and to importantly apply it out in a all out Electronic Elections by 2017 to establish legitimacy of Governments and Parliamentary representation. The Statement made recently by Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen that he can only conduct Photo I.D. voting by 2017 is unacceptable and that the Nation must demand from him and the Government to ensure there is electronic voting and counting in real time to ensure legitimacy of Government and our political process
On Corruption
After nearly three decade of uninterrupted economic growth China .The Government has now has began the process of cleansing itself of corrupted officials who’s greed has helped china inadvertently developed rapidly in the past but now undermines the creditability of the Communist party and its successful socialist approach to development and social progress. The Imprisonment of Chief Sectary to the Goverment of Hong Kong Raphael Hui for accepting HK$8million days before he was appointed Chief Secretary to act as the ear in Government for Mr.Kwok the largest property developer in Hong Kong is part of an on ongoing clamp down right throughout the Military and state Apparatus inside China to weed our t official corruption.Two leading practitioners in the fight against corruption Mr Lee Kwan Yu of Singapore and the Leading African Banker Mr. Lamido Sanusi ,the Former central Bank Governor and now the Emir of Kano, Northern Nigeria have Stated that Corruption in itself per se does is not a hinder economic development within a country , it is the flight of capital out of the country that poses serious threat to a nation .
LKY was commenting on the fall of Sohato in Indonesia and lamented the fact that while Sohato was said to amass a much as US$40 Billion during his reign of Power in Indonesia all his money was kept in Indonesia and his rule helped lift millions Indonesians out of Poverty . LKY has demonstrated that meritocracy and fair market compensation for its elite in Politics, Government and Business is the only way a country can address the corruption. This sentiments were also echoed by Sanusi who has transformed the Nigerian banking system & helped push Nigeria into the new MINT status group of Nation in spite of the chronic corruption within Nigeria. The major route of the flight of capital due to official corruption from PNG has been into Australia and has been correctly identified by leading PNG Corruption Campaigner Sam Koim .
It is now incumbent on the Ombudsmen to use its initiative to investigate the flight of corrupt capital from PNG into the Australian property market and with the aid of the Australian Government & the Federal Police and to bring all those people both politicians and Government officials who have acquired property in Australia over the last 30 years to account for their assets in Australia. As a colleague of Ombudsmen Rigo Lua and Ms Sangatari at Law School I have every confidence that this two lawyers will rise up to the challenge and will leave no stone unturned in prosecuting any leader found to have violated the trust of the people and to ensure that state repossess properties acquired illegally under the Proceeds of Crimes Act. Finally by enshrining that renewal of Political leadership occurs every 10 years as is the practice in China and the USA the country can ensure that politics of cronyism does not entrench itself to our country to stifle growth & competition.
