INCREASING cost of living and doing business. This is one topic that is on the lips of so many Papua New Guineans at this time.

Mums and dads are talking about how they will pay the outstanding school fees of their children; what they will do in the coming new academic year in 2022 in terms of finding school fees and the cost of keeping their children at school. What would be the fees like in the different categories of education in 2022? These are the kinds of real worries that are occupying parents and families across the country.

The small to medium enterprise (SME) owners and other business people and folks in the different sectors of our country are expressing the same fears and anxieties around the high cost of living and doing business and the reduced cash flows in the economy. But I have hardly heard anyone from the National Government saying something about the State’s efforts to arrest the situation, that is, reduce the cost of living and doing business.

If the National Government is doing something about the high cost of living and doing business then, please tell us loud and clear. What are you, the National Government as the custodian of our national wealth and development prospects, doing to reduce the high cost of living and doing business? What are your immediate policy interventions to arrest the dire situation we are in?

We the small people affected by the increasing costs of living and high cost of doing business require straightforward answers from the National Government. Governments in modern democratic countries are regarded as being “of the people, by the people and for the people”. Under the dictates of this democratic tradition, we the simple people need answers from the National Government. Those of you in high places who are involved in the management of our country may be cushioned by your perks and privileges that come with the positions you hold, therefore, you may not feel the pinch and pain of the high cost of living and doing business that the rest of us are experiencing on the ground.

As a reference point in this discussion, I wonder how Papua New Guineans employed at the rate of the minimum wage of K3.80 per hour are coping with their daily lives in our cities and towns. I make this observation assuming all employers are following our laws and paying their minimum wage earners the legal rate of K3.80 per hour. The question that bothers me is whether all average wage earners who are mistreated and paid rates below K3.80 per hour are able to speak up.

If you are such a person and you are reading this, my encouragement to you is to know the fact that you have the biggest advantage over your expatriate employer or any other employer who may be mistreating you. The advantage you have as a Papua New Guinean is that this your country. You have your land and village, family and tribe to stand up for you. So speak up. You have the right to speak up and be recognized among your colleagues and friends and this guaranteed by the Constitution.

The unfortunate fact though is that many ordinary Papua New Guineans tend to be submissive and suppress the mistreatment by the employers and keep slaving away even though their hourly rate may be less than K3.80 and they may be made to work long hours beyond the normal eight hours per day.

There are Papua New Guineans in this category who cannot speak up. I see many young Papua New Guineans, especially girls, who could be in school that are instead working as shop keepers in the retail and takeaway food joints owned by the our newly arrived investors from China and South Asia (India and Bangladesh). I see these young girls working under what appears to be duress for long hours beyond the normal eight hours per day schedule with the hawk-eyed shop supervisors from China and South Asia looking down on them like close circuit television (CCTV) cameras.

What would be the future of say, 15 or 16-year-old girls straight out of Grade 9 or 10, working in one of these shops under difficult circumstances? Are they making ends meet in the present jobs as over-worked shop keepers and will the save up enough money to return to complete their education? In saying this, I would like to see an economy where there is hope for shop assistants paid the hourly rate of K3.80 who are able to progress in life. Our people like the shop assistants referenced here must be able to carve up a better future with the support of a government making life conducive for them with prudent economic management.

We want to see a National Government having a real handle on the economy and providing a sense of direction and purpose in all of us. I hope for an economy that creates opportunities for great stories of simple shop assistants making their way up to be somebody either as private business owners or in the professional career paths after resuming formal education. At this time, the simple employees like the shop keepers and other menial categories of workers and the small to medium (SME) operators are struggling under the high cost of living and doing business. We all are. COVID 19 as an excuse is beginning to lose its credibility.

Like the United Nations and governments of the world are saying we have to “learn to live with COVID 19”. Such calamities, natural or man-made, tend to be cyclical in human history. They come and go. We cannot continue to allow mediocrity and laxity to be the mainstay of our economy with COVID 19 as an ongoing excuse. It is the human resolve led by the those in authority – in the modern era, the executive government – providing the leadership to forge a better path post-calamity. Are we doing that?

At this time, the horizon looks hazy, unclear. There must be certainty from the National Government about giving hope to our people, especially ordinary folks like the shop assistants mentioned above, the SME owners and the rest of us. We need clear, crisp direction from the National Government that they are serious about addressing the high cost of living and putting our economy back on track so we can return to some normalcy or better.