Many of us are excited about the LNG. The main motive for such excitement is the potential for more money and an illusion of a better lifestyle or standard of living. I am terrified of what the LNG would do against us....
We PNGeans (politicians, leaders, landowners, the savvy, the students, the grassroots) unfortunately do not know how to handle money and wealth. Current standard of stewardship of such a tool is little over zero. With the various projects we currently have that boasts billions in income, we see very little development and manifestation of it. We still drive in potholes, our schools lack proper facilities, hospitals (even in the city) have no medicine etc etc.
Too much money in the hands of immature people is dangerous. Take what happened in my home province when vanilla was like legal tender. Everyone walked around literally wit backpacks full of money. Yet today there is not much to show for it. Not much development or improvement in lifestyle/standard of living. The myth the world runs on is that more money will improve the standard of living. But it does the opposite when bad stewards have control over it..and we are not yet good stewards. Other resource-rich areas have nothing to show for it. Many live the same level as their domesticated animals while their landowner chairmen eat and drink in hotel rooms in the city with every conceivable vice and their own real estate empires.
We are not ready for LNG for another generation. We need a complete change of mindset and attitude before we can handle such a mammoth of a project. Otherwise we’ll effectively be choking ourselves to death.
God Help us...to help ourselves...
Heavenise week...
Tokaut Tokstret
Thoughts and Ideas for and regarding Papua New Guinea, the country I love.
we have a history of making hasty decisions which backfire on the nation..... yes we need the income that the LNG project will generate, but you raise very valid concerns... we must look before we leap, or our future generations will pay greatly for our mistakes...
ReplyDeleteyou're right
ReplyDeleteam starting to think we need to voice out against the continuation of the LNG...until we are ready for it then we can go for it.
Thank you Tokaut, you raised some very real concerns about the LNG project.
ReplyDeleteRealistically, I think the project is going to go ahead no matter what we do. It's too good an opportunity to pass up and I think we agree the nation needs it.
With that in mind, I think our challenge is not to stop it or delay it, but to educate our people about its possible impact on everyday life as we know it, eg. how to spot a rip-off and how to gain maximum benefits. How individuals might make the most out of the benefits they receive.
Recently Southern Highlands students at UPNG took upon themselves to carry out awareness about the project among their people. I thought that was a noble initiative.
The challenge for us I feel, is how can we, patriots, assist this in a practical way?
Among the awareness ideas we might think about is getting our young professionals in the areas of finance -- banking and investment -- to help our people understand processes and ways of making their benefits from the LNG project, or any project fo that matter, work and multiply for them. Making them aware that sure, they are getting millions, but thier millions can continue to make more millions if they know how to do it.
To me that's the biggest challenge and I hope the Southern Highlands students will include this in their awareness. Basic banking and investment.
And it's the challenge I put out there for patriots. How can we stop the vanilla boom/bust from happening again? How can land owners continue to enjoy their millions from a mine even after the mine closes down? How can a cocoa grower continue to enjoy the fruit of his labour, even if the price drops suddenly?
SkulimGut
@Tokout Tokstret: Yes, it is true indeed that we PNGeans are not yet ready for the LNG project particularly in relation to the Inflow of money that will be coming in from it. We PNGeans still have a "poor-mentality" attitude toward money and as passed instances have shown that we cannot seem to keep money and "make money work for us". We have what T. Harv Eker coined as "a lack-money mental blueprint". We have been raised up where our very own society (parents, friends, education system, Religion, etc..) has instilled in our minds negative scripts about money. Examples of such "lack-money blue prints" are: money is the root of all evil, money doesn't grow on trees, money is only for the rich, rich people are greedy, etc... This negative mental scripts are the cause of how and why we act, unconciously, the way we do toward money.
ReplyDeleteBE VERY CAREFUL now before we go about voicing our opinions against the continuation of the LNG because it is not the ROOT cause of our current continuing problem. Our problem is with our mindset and that is what we have to focus on. As the group's slogan suggests, "Change Starts With Me", that is where our focus should be on. LNG should be an external stimuli that causes us, each and every one of us PNGeans, to look within our selves in a PRO-ACTIVE manner and analyse and get ourselves in line and ready from the "INSIDE-OUT". What I am saying is just allow LNG to go ahead but come up with PROACTIVE WAYS that we can use to EDUCATE our people on how to use this economic development as an advantage for us to grow and rise out of our lack mentality and into a new mindset of PROSPERITY. In the "Vanilla boom" that we experienced, there wasn't available a group of people who even tried to educate our people on how to manage and build their finances!
REACTING is an OUTSIDE-IN Response. Being PRO-ACTIVE is an INSIDE-OUT Response... Never forget that the fight for change is an INSIDE-OUT approach as our slogan suggests, "Change Starts With Me".
Shalom and God Bless,
MINOL PONGAP
@minol n tovetuna...thanks for joining this discussion and for you comments. Yes it going to be difficult (more like impossible!) to stop LNG.
ReplyDeleteBut the more I read various comments even from facebook and email I have become more aware of just some problems and challenges associated with the LNG. Minol is absolutely right about an inside out solution. That is exactly what PPNG is about. And tovetuna is spot on about proper education of the people about stewardship of money (banking and finances) when the project is on.
While not being fully aware of the full pros n cons of the project, I am heavy-hearted that no proper awareness was done regarding the project in the first-place (but that is hindsight and cannot be helped). The reason I think the Project should be delayed is exactly because of the inside-out approach. I would love for PPNG and relative groups (even the govt) to enter into a massive scale of educating and making people aware of the need for inside out change. And that change has to happen before such the Project happens.
If we can get enough people (leaders or otherwise) to change their mentality then perhaps we could handle the Project well. I am well aware of the improbability of such a proposal (b4 LNG). But seeing that some people agree with us about the un-readiness of the Nation, it may be worth considering.
I just cannot be silent over this because my kids will one day be born into this world. I would love for them to live in less fear of crime than we do today, with more opportunities, to a better standard of living.
I truly want the people to change. But this process of change will become so hindered and even made impossible because Greed and Selfishness will be on the rise. And Ignorance and Arrogance will have a feast on the people.....
Thanks again....