From Israel Kendepf fb shared Gary Juffas photo.--Gary Juffa with Paul Bridgman and 23 others [Its a good read, photos not included)) - MERRY CHRISTMAS MR GOVERNMENT, OUR ECONOMY IS DOING SO WELL. Apparently if we are to believe the Government and the Media our economy is doing very well….This is perhaps why we Papua New Guineans are so happy…we are so glad that we have massive increases in our cost of living…and are unable to get loans from banks for our small businesses…we are simply elated that we get free education of such poor quality that our graduates can barely speak English and are overlooked for foreign workers…we are simply thrilled that our leaders ignore our concerns and petitions and continue to allow the plunder of our forests and marine life by transnational criminal organizations that pay zilch in taxes…oh yes, I can see it everywhere I go whenever there is some incident of harsh brutality and violence against innocents by rogue Policemen on the payroll of logging companies or when those who try to speak up are deprived of funds or services or simply oppressed by bureaucratic red tape and passive aggressive tactics and strategies designed to discredit them, I simply say to myself “We are doing so well!” Today, I drove through Port Moresby and Boroko and the streets of Waigani to parliament. I saw so many street kids selling their wares. I saw a father and his son standing in the hot sun selling cheap Chinese made junk. I saw a mother exhausted sleeping under a tree as her children sat around her waiting for her to wake up and feed them. They looked tired and exhausted. I told myself “That’s our economy, doing so well”. Why are our settlements teeming with people? Why are they here looking for a better life? It must be because their dying stations and shut down districts and lack of law and order and dilapidated infrastructure means we are doing “so well”...theres obviously no other reason... A few nights ago, my brother found a dead body in the drain. It was a young man who looked like a village boy who had come into town for whatever reason. Dead. His skull crushed. My brother reported it to the Police and they came to check. No one was surprised or overly concerned. No emotion. Just reality. Another dead Papua New Guinean searching for a better life perhaps. Dead. Yes, our economy was doing great! Last weekend I was at Wanigela in Tufi at the Department of Primary Industry Station built in 1974. No Government official had ever travelled there since. The old man who had brought the idea and had organized an office to be built there to roll out a cocoa project in 1974 was still there. Waiting. He was so shocked to see me. He cried. I cried. He shook my hand. He had grown old waiting for the services to come. I had gone to say hello and see for myself what the people there were doing and thinking and I wanted to see where I was going to administrate the delivery of that project next year. A beautiful place and such beautiful folk. But everything was their own doing, not a single Government effort but this office. Rundown but kept well. They had waited. Since 1974. Oh yes, our economy is simply skyrocketing here I realized. Of course we are told often not to complain or be cynical and accept that things are great by Mr. GOVERNMENT and his new best friend, Corporate Sponsored MEDIA. But it’s hard to do this though when I see foreign painters, carpenters and even a street sweeper at Vision City while many of my school leavers are unemployed. It’s hard to do this when many Papua New Guinean companies can’t get a loan and fold and entire families and societies bear the brunt and have to march to the miserable tune of not having. It’s hard to be quiet and imagine that somehow the leaders who ignore our cries and keep letting logs be exported and our fish be illegally caught and sent offshore without a single toea paid in tax and our rivers and seas be polluted by tax exempt giant corporations, that these leaders whose giant parties are funded by corporate dinners are actually representing us. “OUR ECONOMY IS SHOWING POSITIVE SIGNS OF GROWTH” We try to understand this when we realize that we have no savings. That we are all living on borrowed money and are encouraged to buy cheap cancer causing carcinogenic foods. Even me. I am more broke then ever in my life. Trying to do so much with so little and not getting any help. Our media even encourages us to be glad with all their positive news about all the great launchings and things happening around the country at inflated contracts with CSTB plainly facilitating the theft of our funds. Last week I texted a Senior Treasury Official who had been promising me funds for my Province for Disaster Relief promised by our PM in 2012. We had only received K2m. YOU are a liar I texted. I wanted the balance to build a Disaster Management Centre and be prepared. I had been asking for two years! He told me lies after lies that it was being raised, it was coming. Nothing this year again. We had costed and designed and justified and done everything necessary. Lies. “Bro it was deemed non-essential funding so I was advised to cut it.” He texted back. Non-essential funding? Disaster relief? How can we say that? So I had to divert K1m from our Provincial Development Funds to make sure we are prepared. Last two years we saved 150 lives from such situations because we had been prepared. I can’t afford not to be prepared to save the lives of my people. It’s my fundamental responsibility. I guess our economy is doing so well funds can be cut if they are deemed “Non-essential”. I could say much more. I am not happy. I am bitter. Even if the economy is doing so well. It’s not doing well for me. Or my people in Oro. Maybe for others in PNG but I doubt it. Yes there are some improvements, BUT THERE COULD BE SO MUCH MORE! WHY IS IT SO HARD TO TAKE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND RID OUR SHORES OF THE TRANSNATIONAL CRIMINAL ENTITIES THAT ARE SUCKING OUR REVENUES AND PUMPING IT OFFSHORE WITH IMPUNITY AND WHY DO YOU LET THEM MR. GOVERNMENT?? If it’s doing well, for who, I ask? WHO INDEED! Merry Christmas, I say. Merry Christmas and thank you for growing our economy MR GOVERNMENT. We are so lucky to be suffering more and being more miserable and watching others get richer at our expense and our logs and fish shipped out without a toea paid in taxes. So fortunate we are that Ministers and their public servant puppets ignore the plight of the people they claim to serve. 2015 is coming. We might be doing even better in that year. More suffering and pain and violence and deaths and struggling for a people in a economy doing so well AGAIN.... Yes it’s Christmas, and in the spirit of Christmas, we should share...especially since OUR ECONOMY is doing so well...so share this Christmas Message so that we may all share in how well OUR ECONOMY is doing... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Comments The positive marks of OUR ECONOMY DOING WELL will be the following:- (1). Not so much of cash handouts as Saint Nicholas’s approach BUT through strengthening of strategic and sustainable activities, projects or programmes owned and operated by the “have-nots” based on what they have through what they capably know without any created strings attached to remote controls; (2) Improvement of social indicators from health, education law and order etc. sectors (3) Basically every citizen MUST have more K3.00 in the pocket every day. (4) There should be no beggers on the streets of our urban centres (5) That PNG citizens become employers for thousands of unemployed citizens. (6). That PNG industries will increase in manufacturing PNG law materials into finished products (7). That energy cost and availability will become easy and accessible to the “have-nots” of PNG citizens in urban settlements and remote rural areas. (8). PNG will increasingly replace squatter settlements from developing into urban slum status.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 00:48:53 +0000
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