Transcript
BRYAN KRAMER: Well, I wouldn't say it's a time of growth. In terms of infrastructure, yes. But in terms of GDP and the impact on everyday Papua New Guineans it's actually a challenging time. Companies are struggling to get forex (foreign exchange). A number of them are shrinking, they've been forced to either cut costs, lay off workers. The average Papua New Guinean is struggling to get by. The cost of living has gone up as our kina continues to devaluate based on our restrictions on foreign exchange. So while the APEC is ramping up in terms of its media and publicity, it'll have little impact on people on the ground.
JOHNNY BLADES: There's so many signs about APEC, and it seems all the commentary coming out from the government is about APEC. It's everywhere...
BK: The government is using APEC as a means to distract people to focus on this expectation on what's going to come out of APEC. The reality is it's a global meeting staged every year of the 21 member countries. PNG happens to be the poorest of those 21 countries. So they will have their meeting, the world leaders, and then they will discuss whatever the issues are no the global scale; and it's mainly to do with trade. You'l have big business here, you'll have countries coming to negotiate their trade deals. It's merely a venue. PNG is hosting as a venue the APEC. It'll be interesting to see what we as a country get out of it in terms of trade. We're not a manufacturing country. So there's little impact it will have in terms of our industry, other than whether those countries afford us some sort of concessional loans or grants or funding.
JB: The government says this will put PNG on the map, encourage investment in PNG and open up trade opportunities with Asian markets. Do you accept that?
BK: Well, firstly, we're already on the map. The problem is we're on the map for all the wrong reasons. The reality is we're a very small economy. So it's not like all of a sudden the world is going to open up to PNG. The challenges in PNG remain the same, in terms of doing business in PNG, in terms of corruption, and these are the deterrents that are turning away investment. We've lost confidence in investment. And if no one's going to bring money to PNG if you can't take it out. That is the reality of what we're facing now. Companies can't get forex out, whether you're based in PNG or you're outside. So foreign investment, I'm going to see PNG as a prime location when their concern is if they put their money in, can they get their money out.
JB: This foreign exchange problem has been around for several years now, hasn't it? what do you think about the way Treasury, or at least the Treasurer, is managing it?
BK: Any country's foreign currency is underpinned by their foreign reserves. Over the years, or initially, it escalated out of control when the government made the decision to start pegging the kina and putting in restrictions. They should have allowed a free market and looked at strategies of how they can maintain a free and fair foreign currency. So the minute they put restrictions on it, people started to want to take it out. And then it restricted those who want to put it back in. So it's going to continue. The fact is our kina is over-valued by some twenty percent. And you've got the IMF and international economists suggesting that we need to float our kina. The reality is it will reduce by about twenty percent. Now that'll then be conducive to an export market, and then foreign companies coming in to say, right, now it's a lot more cost effective to do business in PNG - the costs have gone down because the kina has devaluated. That'll make us more attractive to do an export market. And those export businesses will bring kina back. Until we start to think about sensible strategies on managing our economy, it all comes down to confidence. In a bank, if you've got a bank run by a management CEO that lies, cheats and steals, no one is going to invest in that bank. That's the reality of our economy. We've lost business, and people have lost confidence in how our economy is being managed.
JB: What about at the grassroots level, how are people getting by?
BK: Well, things are getting worse. How do you know when people are struggling? Crime will pick up. At the moment, you're seeing on the front pages, social issues within communities, Port Moresby, around the country, it's becoming a lot more prevalent. And that is just showing that society itself is struggling. There's a line, a point where you fall off the cliff. And the concern is if we continue to go down the path we're on, after APEC is done, after November, then what for PNG? And this is going to be the issue. What is going to happen post-APEC. Because now everyone's focused on APEC, and the government's asking people to focus on APEC. Then APEC's come and gone, it hasn't delivered. The PNG (hosting of the Pacific) Games never delivered much. We spent a billion kina on that. There were other major events: the World Under 20 soccer tournament, we spent a few hundred million on that. Again it delivered very little. All these roads being built are buried in debt by the Chinese. They're delivering out these projects. They're all attached to loans that we have to pay off, and so most of these contracts are questionable by being inflated. These are the issues that we're going to have to face post-APEC, and it's not going to be easy. Everyone's going to suffer to a point that there's some confidence back in how the government and the economy is managed.
JB: Isn't it prudent in a way to borrow for infrastructure projects, though? You need to borrow sometimes, don't you.
BK: Look, like any organisation, you borrow within your means. Whether it's a family unit, you borrow knowing that you have the capability to pay it off and manage it. There's no point buying a Range Rover that costs 6-hundred-thousand to go to the village to deliver health services or medicine, when actually you cold have just done it with a Toyota, or hired a car to drive there. So most of all this infrastructure, the question is: it comes at what cost? So we're talking projects that are now in the two, three, four-hundred million range, based on the back of loans of some billions of kina. So they're unnecessary. The country does not live in Port Moresby. So everyone wants to drive around in a Mercedes, but if you can't afford it then there's no point in going to the bank and borrowing money and ending up bankrupt for it.
JB: You've got a lot of roads being built in Moresby, but I'm not sure it's the same in other provinces.
BK: No there's actually very little road infrastructure in the other centres. I mean Lae (PNG's second biggest city) is still trying to complete its road between the airport and Lae city. You've got Mt Hagen, the same thing, they're talking about building these double lane roads. The reality is hospitals are running out of medicines. We've now got a polio outbreak. So it seems we're not focusing on our priorities and that is the welfare of the people. If we continue to focus on infrastructure at the expense of people's welfare, then society as we know it will start to collapse and breakdown.
JB: Why do most of the parliamentarians support a government if it can't manage these basic services, as you say?
BK: Most members of parliament have no idea in their roles and capacity as a member of parliament. Now they're created this District Development authority where they become project managers. So they will just follow whatever they're told. Their fear is re-election, and if you're not in government the concern is that you won't get the funding you need to deliver in your electorate. But this is... they're completely blinded. I'm in opposition and I still get my DSIP (District Services Improvement Programme funding). Initially, in the past there have been records of the government delaying DSIP to members of parliament. They initially started when I got elected. I went to the media, I went public and said if there's any efforts by the O'Neill government to delay our DSIP I intend to take it to court, take it to the media, take it to APEC. And since then we are now receiving our payments in equal time and equal share as members in government.
JB: It seems like you're a bit of a thorn in the prime minister's side. Would you characterise it like that?
BK: Look, I will question anyone that lies in parliament. I've told the prime minister, Peter O'Neill, and I interject and call a point in order every time he or anyone in his government, or minister, tells lies on the floor of parliament. And in the past they didn't have that where members of the opposition stand up and call them out. So the minute they make a statement and I confirm it to be a lie, then I will go public or I will call them out for their lie, and then obviously put them on notice, they can't just go and make a statement and make up stuff because it suits them.
