We just need to ask ourselves...Where are our people?

Gary Juffa

My Dear Papua New Guinea,

Since "INDEPENDENCE" PNG has become ever more DEPENDANT on foreign intervention...in just about every facet of significant economic activity...we are mostly irrelevant...while we busy ourselves politicking and entertaining ourselves with all manner of activities ranging from sporting events, cultural gatherings and numerous regional and international forums and conventions, our resources are funnelled offshore to enrich the powerful economies that actually control our current and increasingly our future..

To gain this insight one need not look far...nor do we need extensive economic analysis of complex confusing data...

We just need to ask ourselves...Where are our people?

How are they faring?

Education, health, economic opportunity, infrastructure and justice...the measuring perspectives...Our review to reveal the answers can be brutally explicit when we focus on the hubs that should be conduits for delivery of government goods and services to majority PNG: our rural Stations and Districts...

Take a hard long look at them...observe and think....

Long and hard.

As for the central agencies, they do not serve Papua New Guineans..they are facilitators of trade that favor the powerful elements that control our nation's destiny...

It should come to you...the realisation that our districts and stations which serve the greater majority of our people are in ruins and rapidly deteriorate...and our people are struggling to eke out a living...selling junk...competing for work amongst ourselves while the more substantial opportunities are drawn further away from our reach...Yes we may have some money but just enough to keep us quiet and convinced all is well...

We don't own the economy or what drives it...not by a very long stretch of a Papua New Guineans imagination.

And no...sadly it is not just doomsday rhetoric as those who are in charge like to keep saying..but reality...the real facts are abundantly evident in every Station and District bar NONE...in fact it would take some amazing imagination to see otherwise.

Just take a look...

Because when I do take a look, I do ask myself..."Are we celebrating 40 years of INDEPENDENCE when in fact we should be mourning 40 years of DEPENDENCE?"

Make your own conclusion.