Government co-ordination

worries Steamships boss

The effectiveness of adminis trative government in Papua New Guinea is slipping, claims the managing director of the Australia-based Steam ships Trading Company Lim ited, Don Harvey.

In a paper to the PNG Institute of Management, published in mid-June, Mr Harvey praises the orderly manner in which PNG assumed control of its affairs from Australia. But he ex pressed concern that the past five years have seen ‘co ordination and effectiveness disappearing from the national administration’.

Steamships Trading

Company is a major multi interest group operating in PNG. It is engaged in retail ing, service industries, agriculture, shipping and

slipways, cargo handling,

light industry, the automotive

trades, hotels and tourism.

Because of the historical background to investment in PNG, most of the company’s shareholders are in Australia.

But all of its shares are listed on the public market and, un like many other major enterprises in PNG, it is fully controlled in PNG and is not a subsidiary of an Australian company.

Mr Harvey said that de

spite the government’s ex

pensive research into the need for development, invest ment and internal equity, there appeared to be a lack of overall co-ordination and a failure to apply consistent guidelines to the economy.

Referring to his own company, Mr Harvey said great concern was felt at the

oft-quoted phrase ‘foreign

enterprise’. The shares were freely available any day, he said, but the company had to smart under the tag of

‘foreign enterprise’, often

used by people whom, he suspected, did not know what they were talking about. He said he had already told critics: ‘Put your money where your mouth is and you could take control today.’

He said he knew of

companies owned by Papua

New Guineans wanting to invest in Steamships but they were denied this opportunity by the government itself be cause some person in the government classified Steam

ships as ‘foreign’.

‘Surely with this attitude, the government’s policy of “buying back the farm” will never be fulfilled,’ said Mr

Harvey. He said the stability

of Steamships Trading Com

pany shares on the Australian market was long established but there was a low rating out of context with the results.

He saw this not as a reflec tion on the company but on the investment climate of PNG, and this in turn stemmed from government and public attitudes on PNG itself.

On the wider sphere of general management in PNG, Mr Harvey said that the deterioration of law and order was a cause for great concern.

He said that staffing costs were escalating because em

ployees whites or Papua

New Guineans had to be protected from fear and

apprehension. Shoplifting

and theft were on the increase and social responsibility and social consciousness were

disappearing.

Port Moresby, he said, had

become a dirty, untidy city,

and private enterprise was

disheartened when its attempts to upgrade facilities

created vandalism, destruc tion and graffiti.

The slipping of control, he said, was also noticeable in an

increasing lack of discipline

in the workforce. Govern ment had to be looked at as a business, he said, but until all its arms and activities could be co-ordinated im provement could not be

expected.

PNG’s tax man

chasing s2om

Former residents of Papua New Guinea, mainly Aus tralians, have left the country owing $A7.5 million in back taxes. This sum, disclosed in the taxation office’s annual re port, is part of a total overdue tax amounting to nearly $2O million.

The chief collector of taxes said that the amount owed by

people living in Australia,

mainly overdue personal tax,

could not be recovered by any existing standard process be cause ‘our recovery rights do not extend beyond our terri torial boundaries’.