COMPARING NORTH KOREA AND PAPUA NEW GUINEA

WHAT IS IT ABOUT NORTH KOREA THAT MAKES PEOPLE SAY IT IS SO UNDEVELOPED? 

by JACKSON RUNDUWALI

Some people are going to have a terrible time trying to figure this out because you always thought that it was the infrastructure itself that was development! Maybe even our Prime Minister has things all screwed up and also things that if he can just build infrastructure all over PNG that PNG will become developed.
Not quite the case! We need to explain this carefully so that you will understand. Maybe if you know the Prime Minister, you can sit down with him and teach him too.
Firstly is the fact that North Korea hasn't built infrastructure all over the rural areas of its country. It has concentrated the nice infrastructure only in the capital city of Pyongyang. Pyongyang has a population of 2.5 million out of a total of 24.5 million for the country as a whole. That means about 90% of North Koreans aren't seeing much useful infrastructure at all. Just like in PNG, where Port Moresby's population is an estimated population of a bit under 400,000 out of what was then a total national population of about 7 1/2 million. That means Port Moresby only has about 5 1/2% of the nation's total population at most. Any flyovers or slideunders, fancy stadiums, and nice roads in Port Moresby benefit hardly any of our people at all. Because the O'Neill government has built so much infrastructure in Port Moresby, our Prime Minister is on track to earning his Mao Suit and become a Kim Jong Un think-a-like. Kim puts a little infrastructure in rural areas and so does our P.O. but not enough to make much difference.
One thing that is different between PNG and North Korea that puts North Korea a bit ahead is that North Korea uses North Koreans to build their infrastructure from top to bottom, while PNG today likes to use foreigners, since the foreigners usually got better technical or vocational education than any of our people, considering the shitting education our government offers the people of PNG. At least Kim Jong Un manages to fully train and highly educate enough of the population to service their needs. After all, they are now testing an atomic bomb!!!!! Our trained carpenters still have problems cutting precisely, measuring the length of planks accurately and all that because they didn't get the practice nor attentive teachers in school here in PNG.
Also PNG uses foreign contractors a lot, like for the famous Kumul Flyover that cost so much it ate up the entire budget before it even could fully reach its destination (Somare Haus at Waigani Office complex). North Korea uses only its government companies. It is a communist government which means that almost everything belongs to the government, not to private business people.
A bit of a difference and problem with quality of infrastructure construction as well between North Korea and PNG but not too much since one of the reasons that the largest hotel in the world, the Ryogyoung, has never been completed, is that they used substandard concrete to built that giant and also it is reported that the elevator shafts are crooked that elevators cannot be installed.
Not good, not good! But overall it is obvious from photos of infrastructure in Pyongyang that overall the quality of their infrastructure is like about ten times or more better than the infrastructure that the Peter O'Neill government is building for the people of PNG. Roads that don't have the mandated quality of concrete used, or too thin a layer of bitumen or not a proper drainage system for the road to keep water from seeping under the road. These are constant problems in PNG.
Of course the villagers aren't looking at the details. All their eyes are open to is to see a new road pushed through to their village and kill pigs in celebration. They say they will vote for PNC candidate next election and support Peter O'Neill! They are not noticing that the road has no gravel put on it or proper angling of the road. Also rain overspills onto the main part of the road and causes little rivers that soon make small valleys across the road itself. Vehicles start slipping and sliding off that kind of road, all the way down to certain death and destruction. A few years after that the road is full of landslips and can't even be used. The villagers are back to Square 1 but seems that all they remember is that Peter O'Neill was the one that gave them road that they could at least use for a year or two before going back to nothing for the next donkeys years.
It doesn't seem that North Korea is that slack when it builds infrastructure. More like us they may delay maintenance too long and that causes the whole road to fall apart and become useless.
Building infrastructure, be it for transport, health or education that reaches too small a percentage of the population is what earns both North Korea and Papua New Guinea two of the world's worse Human Development Indicator rankings from the United Nations. North Korea is ranked better than PNG, however, because the builders are better educated so that they can build more solid, higher quality infrastructure giving no jobs to foreigners. Also, North Korea concentrating all its best infrastructure in its capital serves a bit higher percentage of the overall population than PNG putting its best infrastructure in Port Moresby.
The next posting on the situation of North Korea's infrastructure leading to such low overall development will provide more explanation on how such a low ranking is given to a country that has such spectacular looking infrastructure that would make our poor bubus cry if they could ever see such things in PNG.

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