PNG Vision 2050 nearly forty years in the making
Updated
Papua New Guinea's government has come up with an ambitious Vision 2050 plan to manage the country's resources. The vision is to deliver basic services the government has not been able to provide in the last 34 years, over the next 40 years.
It is aimed at wealth creation, education, shipping medicines to health centres, increasing teachers and creating jobs.
The Deputy Chairman of the Vision 2050 Task Force, Daniel Kapi, says it gives life to an original 8-point plan which Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare had envisioned just before PNG attained independence in 1975. But Mr Kapi says Vision 2050 will only work if the government allocates enough funding and the public service implements it.
Presenter: Firmin Nanol
Speaker: Daniel Kapi, deputy Chairman of PNG's Vision 2050 Task Force
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KAPI: Recent 2050 is we're just giving life to this document called the 8 point plan adopted by then the current prime minister was chief minister then which gave a directional path for Papua New Guinea and at that time, the document did not have an strategy to operationalise it and so it sort of died down. Nobody took ownership of it and we are now giving life to it by rearranging that vision to reflect today and to take us to the next 40 years in which addresses a lot of issues like service delivery, wealth creation. So it does look at the entire range of issues that are affecting PNG.
NANOL: Mr Kapi, at this point in time, the services and delivery mechanism of the public service is it's not really performing, there are complaints. Now if it is looking at addressing in the next 40 years, why cannot we do it now? What is the problem?
KAPI: Okay, to answer, let me put it this way. The vision is 40 years, but for us it is in ten year period and to arrest the decline is very crucial for us and our program so we need to address those issues.
NANOL: Mr Kapi, for someone who does not understand such documents and plans like that, classrooms don't have teachers, no desks, clinics have no medicine and no health workers. Does it come back are we going to train this large number of doctors and teachers and are we going to train this much number of grade work from this training institutions and colleges to fill in these gaps. Does it come to that or does it talks about weddings?
KAPI: Firstly, we have got to attend to the district, that is where the bulk of our people are. We are specific in saying we need to have this number of people and that is where the government is not visible. We're saying under the vision, look the church is there, so let's transcend the church. If the church is a strong deliverer in a particular district, the plan says okay, we give all our financial support to the church, be it in hospital or other services that the church renders, so it is not about only government delivering the service. Even to the extent where we say if the church can do education well and hospital work well, why not give it to them?
NANOL: Another thing is sometimes so many good plans have come up like this, physically on the ground, it has never happened. Is there any guarantee this will work?
KAPI: Okay, one of the things that we are doing now is this plan will now be anchored in law, so that it is as a legal footing. So we are making amendments to the prime minister and N.E.C. act which will legally be part of their program, which will empower them to push this plan forward.
NANOL: Mr Kapi, in the last 34 years, the 8 Point Plan, the same plan has been there, the vision has been there, past governments and governments have ignored it. They have never looked at it. It has not been delivered. It's the same pillar that is now you are saying giving life, because it was dead. In the 34 years if the government has not done it, what is the garauntee that it could do it the next....?
KAPI: As I said, we have specific problems. No one has ownership over it. So now under law, it will be ownership will be taken over by the Department of Prime Minister and N.E.C. so at least you know that the driver becomes the prime minister himself and the executing agency becomes the Department of Prime Minister. That is the first step.
NANOL: But the prime minister has been there in the helm for so many years, 40 years in politics, almost going to be there in the last ten years now?
KAPI: He can give only political direction. The implementation is the public service, that is why it is very fundamental for us and as a plan we are now organising the public service to take ownership of the document or else it just becomes like another document as you say.
