An 8-Point Plan For Prosperity

From a Port Moresby correspondent

Papua New Guinea’s philosophy is an eight-point improvement plan which did not just happen overnight.

It evolved from visits ministers, led by the Chief Minister, made to towns and villages.

The ministers soon realised, after meeting many people, that although different areas had different problems, there was an overall similarity. Many continuing policies, drawn up under earlier administrations, were out of date. They did not provide for the type of development PNG wanted.

Mr Somare reported that some of the problems were; • Villages almost empty of young men who had gone to the towns for work; • Unemployment in the towns; 9 Sick people having to walk miles for medical help; • Schooling which did not pre pare students for life in the villages or towns; • A lack of roads and bridges which stopped people from taking their produce to market;

• Small businesses and co operatives not making profits; • A wide gap in living standards between a few rich and a majority poor.

To tackle these problems an over all philosophy of development was laid down so that all government de partments could work to the kind of development required. Many de partments have produced new plans and ideas which will help to develop the eight-point plan philosophy.

The eight-point improvement plan is: • A rapid increase in the pro portion of the economy under the control of New Guinean individuals and groups, and in the proportion of personal and property income that goes to New Guineans; • More equal distribution of economic benefits, including move ment towards equalisation of incomes among people and toward equalisa tion of services among different areas of the country; • Decentralisation of economic

activity, planning and government spending, with emphasis on agricul tural development, village industry, better internal trade and more spend ing channelled to local and area bodies; • An emphasis on small-scale artisan, service and business activity, relying where possible on typically New Guinean forms of economic activity; • A more self-reliant economy, less dependent for its needs on im ported goods and services and better able to meet the needs of its people through local production; • An increasing capacity for meet ing government spending needs from locally raised revenue; e A rapid increase in the activity and equal participation of women in all forms of economic and social activity; • Government control and in volvement in those sectors of the economy where control is necessary to achieve the desired kind of de velopment.