Posted By Staff Reporter
Commentary by Petrus GAND As far as I can recall, when growing up as a child, the world seemed so big. Even the 12-hours day time was more than enough to accomplish many things. That was the moment when our currency afforded us lots of stuff as it had the purchasing power. Families had ample food and even spare monies for clothes, school fees, health care and other essential expenditures. Little children were well fed and fought well with the malnutrition rate. Poverty line was too far to reach. Both formal and informal sector employees were satisfied with their salaries, and were reluctant to take bribes or fascinate unjust conducts. We would have been sustainable today by maintaining a balanced budget, if we had planned well back then. But as years went by, everything fell apart. Our government were seeking assistance overseas as our internal affairs were at the brink of collapse. Our economic leakages were greater than our injections as shown by the economic indicators such as inflation rate, employment gap, export returns and etcetera, leaving fewer hopes for our fiscal and monitory policies to handle them. Never have we had a surplus budget or even a balanced budget. All we had were deficits after deficits, so we had to look for sources outside our shores. That is why, increasing debts was the only option to cater for our economy. And it piled up every time a new Prime Minister was elected. Our leaders’ fault in not developing a sustainable mechanism to regenerate finances to support us had birthed a tragedy that we are fighting it for years. Many contemporary families in the rural areas in PNG live on a daily budget of K1.50, which is below the poverty line. They buy a pack of cooking-oil costing K1 and the remaining K0.50 is used to purchase a package of salt and it’s done. A devouring family meal is prepared. Miserably, the necessary nutrients required by the human body are not met so it is understandable to see little children stuffed with malnutrition, along with early childhood and old-age deaths. There is limited cash flow in circulation. The recent 2023 budget with a K.1.1 billion allocated to pay the government’s internal-debts (required by court orders) is another story altogether with regards to loans accumulated within the state’s institutions, as well as those taken abroad. We are drifting on the debt-traps like a fish without fins. Our employment rate is declining. Many foreign entities depart our economy as there is rapid growth of unlawfulness that affects the investors security. Hereafter, should we privatize and enlarge our leading industries so that it can eat away the raging unemployment rate? Petrus GAND BH2O-SOB Also read Comments are closed.
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