The kina

Editorial

The kina meltdown

The kina meltdown is a tragedy for Papua New Guinea. It is a tragedy for individuals, fami lies, small businesses and even large concerns. It affects the whole nation.

And yet as the currency continues to freefall, the Government offers the pre posterous view that it’s doing the coun try good.

Try telling that to the urban housewife who has a family to feed, or the village trade store operator who’s going broke or the cannery worker who doesn’t know when he or she will work again.

The kina collapse brings misery all round.

And it is a clear sign that the world community has lost patience with PNG. It is no longer prepared to fund the nation’s budget deficit while certain sectors of the community continue to live beyond their means.

So far, the Skate Government has been defiant, standing on its right to govern independently and refusing to accept World Bank and International Monetary Fund conditions that attach to much-needed loans.

In the global village, that attitude is no longer viable. For while the Government stands on its pride, the people suffer.

It’s a recipe for trouble in an already troubled land whose people deserve a kinder fate.

The architects of the hard kina strategy

of the early and mid-80s must be shaking their heads in sorrow. They predicted then that any abandonment of the policy that protected the currency from the vicissi tudes of the world market would end in disaster.

It now seems they were right.

If nothing is done, PNG is heading for deeper trouble. Its problems can only worsen under the burden of an economy crippled by a collapsing currency. If this is allowed to continue unchecked, soon even the basics for survival will be beyond the means of many.

Then the trouble will really begin.

The Skate Government should climb down from its high horse and meet the terms offered by the World Bank and the

Imf.

Granted, it’s not the total solution to the nation’s problems, but it might buy some time so that those problems can be addressed.

To do nothing is no solution at all. ■