It’s Dearer On The Cheap

"One of these days this Territory is going to learn that the dearest way to do a job is to do it on the cheap. And this Territory is the South Pacific's leading exponent on the do-it-on-the-cheap method."

The Territory was Papua-New Guinea. The speaker was a senior Territory public servant - but apparently not so senior that he could do anything about his complaint.

According to him, the territory has been so busy attempting to build a little bit of everything that it has built little that is substantial, except perhaps hospitals.

"We spend money on hospitals, and we have some good ones," he said. "But we can't afford to build a decent road, so we build Something that has to be continually patched and soon costs more in the maintenance than a decent road would have cost in the first place.

The bridges are the same - they're too small because we reckon we can't afford to build them bigger.

"We can't afford to build big hydro schemes, so we waste our money on alternative power sources which soon cost more than a decent sized hydro scheme that requires little maintenance, and few people to watch over it.

"And we spend thousands every year investigating better schemes for just about everything we want, before we eventually decide that we can't afford the better themes, and go back to the alternatives.

But the thousands we have wasted on the investigation would have helped pay for the better schemes.

"What this country needs is a proper planning organisation that can look at everything over-all, and see the money is spent in the way that will do most good. And not on the cheap”