Unemployment

Namaliu: There’s no excuse for anyone to go hungry or not to be employed, the resources are there. The impor tant thing is how we organise ourselves so that we are utilising all of the human resources, that’s where the prob lem is. I think also we need to critically examine some of our own attitudes. Part of the problem is we have such a free attitude to life generally. There are those who are happy sitting under a coconut tree, as long as they can eat fish and vegetables from day to day. Yet, there are those who go into urban centres, even those in the villages who have Been exposed to seeing other people enjoy a lifestyle that they obviously want to aspire to and they think the fastest way to get there is to break into a house. This is part of the whole process of change which is happening so fast. Fundamentally, as I said, weve got the land and yet we’re not organised in such a way that we can have every

one employed.

Part of the problem is that most of the land in this country is customarily owned and to make land available to someone who is not from that customary group is very difficult. You’re dealing with modern western law, vis a vis customary law and that produces a fundamental conflict which we’re still in the process of sorting out, even in terms of mineral development. In this country customary law says whatever you grow on that land is yours, whatever is underneath is yours. Common law says, whatever you grow on the land is yours, but not what is underneath. We have to sort out some of the fundamental conflicts in our legal precepts, so that we can make more land available for production.

What is motivating the growing incidence of Law and Order problems?

There might be anger aimed at people perceived by them to be succeeding at the expense of others. There may be anger also aimed at expatriates in this country because they perceive them as having a much more com fortable lifestyle than Papua New Guineans. There are those vyho just feel basically frustrated with society, they feel rejected, that nobody wants them so they do things which they do against society as a whole, not necessarily a particular group or a particular segment of society.

Chan: The increasing unemployment figures can’t be dealt with, not now and not for a long time. I think if I tried to make the whole problem look simple I would be lying to you. At the moment we have a 3.5 per cent growth rate in PNG with a population of about 3.7 million people. By the year 2015 we are looking at about double that population. Today we have about 50,000 students coming out of school and only about 5000 of them can find joos. So, by that time, we will have about 100,000 and only about 10,000 jobs. It’s a very critical problem, it must be attacked. It’s going to take a lot of guts to re-direct government expenditure in the way that it needs to be re-directed. That is in both macro and micro economic policy areas, short term painful restructuring for the long

term good.

We’ve got to try and tap finance from donors who are prepared to give aid on a tied basis. We have to see how we can save money within the country, so we’ve got to have a long hard look at the financial institutions in PNG.

We’ve got to look at our taxation and tarrif structure, to see whether or not a reduction in tax, corporate and per sonal could improve investment in this country, allowing more money to be available for re-investment. We have to select a bench mark which would make Papua New Guinea competitive in terms of corporate tax. That’s one area.

The other is to see if we can restructure the tarrif, so it could mean a short term protective tarrif in order that we can create manufacturing potential. Unfortunately, in that order we are small and the distribution cost so great. We need to create an economic development zone or a trade zone. If you organise it in such a way that you have a very tight infrastructure then you could have a lot of people living close to this zone with all the transportation built m.

In that way the cost of production could be less because people won’t demand higher wages. They are living within the nousing infrastructure, close to the factory.

Is the development of a National Youth Service or Paramilitary force under the umbrella of the military an effective way of dealing with unemployment?

Namaliu: We think it is a good idea to help us with our youth problem. It will get young people into something where they can be trained to do something meaningful in the community. They would get trained in a particular skill which would help them earn a living but it would also help them get into a situation where they can learn about discipline, they can learn about leadership, all things which will contribute towards the shaping of a better character.

We’d like to develop our human resources, channeling them through a programme which will help them develop into more constructive and better citizens.

Chan: It is a temporary solution to the problem but it would help to establish a certain amount of discipline. In a sense I support that very strongly because a lot of our kids leave school at an early age, tney constitute the 55,000 unemployed each year. They neea a bit of discipline and maturity, in those terms I see a paramilitary as fine. But, really it is a very, very short term solution to a long term problem and the problem is finding them jobs to go into.