This land called Papua New Guinea is for us the Melanesian Papua New Guineans to make it
great.

We must have a country with sound economic growth because without the economy doing
well, everything else will continue be a struggle. The gains of a sound economy ought to equitably
benefit the majority of our people.
Most importantly, we must be the drivers of our economy because money earned from the robust
performance our economy that we are the captains of can pay for social services, infrastructure,
new investment and so forth. Most importantly, the money earned will remain here when bulk of
our national economy is in our hands.
After all, money talks in today’s world. Without money, or with little of it, we can do so much. We
will continue to rely on outsiders for support through loans and other assistance and foreign
investment. All these assistance from outsiders come with conditions. Some of the conditions are
more overt and obvious, others are covert and saddle our economy from truly being in our hands.
Sadly, at the moment, we are not in control of much of our economy as many learned institutions,
experts and commentators have pointed out in recent times.
What we have become as an economy is a reflection of our colonial legacy issues and how we as
people of a young developing country have fared in terms of education and our ability to do the
right things by the laws of the land all the time.
As an ancient and traditional people, we opened up to the outside world like everyone else in the
“global south”, to the whims of imperialism and colonialism. We had little choice as a traditional
society not familiar with engaging with those beyond or tribal and cultural boundaries defined by
mountains, valleys, plains, rivers and the sea immediately before our shores.
Following the end of the pursuits of imperial rule and colonialism we went through decolonization
as it swept across the global south after World War II ended in 1945. We have been impacted
variously by those contacts with outsiders. Not all contact with outsiders has been good to us as
an indigenous people. Many of us know where we have been hurt by the contact with the outside
world since the days of imperialism and colonization.
We the Melanesian Papua New Guineans now know how we faired as a modernizing nation as
from independence on 16 September 1975. It has been 45 years of great lessons and not so
great lessons behind us.
Today we are at the cross-road of a new wave of outside influences.
Under this new wave of outside influences, how do we, for example, fathom our young daughters
straight out of Grade 10 working extremely long hours in the often steamy shops of the so-called
foreign investors and paid pittance that they cannot make ends meet for two weeks?

Walk into one of these shops of the so-called foreign investors and observe the level of stress these young
kids of ours hide behind the customer service façade because the forever-present ‘boss’ is watching.
The impunity under which these foreign investors maliciously threat our people in their steamy
shops feels like there is no rule of law and our people are at the mercy of the cashed-up and well-
connected minority.
Whom do our youths working long hours for pittance in this mainly sweaty shops turn to for help
to fight for their rights as decent human beings of the 21 st century? Workers unions? Do we have
unions at all in 2021?
What happens in these foreign-owned sweat shops is a microcosm of us not taking real control of
our economy and what is happening in it. The mistreatment of our young people in these shops is
part of a widespread flaunting our of laws right across the spectrum of our economy that many
learned academics, consultants and commentators have spoken about in many forums.
The flagrant flaunting of our laws, at times with the full knowledge of Papua New Guineans in
responsible positions, by foreigners looks as though we are a lawless society. We are not. We
have some of the best regularity set up.
But sadly, we often are let down by the enforcement side of those regularity functions of the
various government agencies. Too many times this is attributed to capacity constraints, and
mostly it is to do with under-funding or lack of funding.
Capacity constraints in the regulatory bodies responsible for the resource extraction sectors has been
identified as one of the reasons why we continue to miss out on optimizing our gains in those sectors.
My point is that we as Melanesian Papua New Guineans must mean business when we are in
positions where we can make a difference in changing the cause of our economy from being
dominated by foreigners. Whether we are mandated leaders, public servants, landowners or
community leaders, we must be patriotic in our approaches and decision-making when dealing
with foreigners who come to do business with us.
The basic question we ought to be asking in any dealings with foreigners is what is there for me, my
people and my country to gain equitably under our laws of country. By this, I don’t mean taking short-
cuts to make things happen for you and those you associate with like or tribe or friends. I mean we
have to always think about the overall good of our country, our people and ourselves, first and
foremost, when we enter into discussions and negotiations for business.