I com estan els de Papua Nova Guinea?

Left behind by Asia's rise

Jul 19th 2007 | PORT MORESBY
From The Economist print edition

Nature has dealt this poor Pacific country a tough hand. Even so, reformers have already shown how it could be doing much better

SO FAR Papua New Guinea has had a fairly successful election. A few people have been shot or hacked to death in political squabbles, vote-buying has been rampant and there have been reports of ballot-tampering. But it has gone better than the previous, chaotic election in 2002. Voting across the sparsely populated country of 6m people began on June 30th and, extended when bad weather hampered the movements of election officials, went on until the middle of this month.

Voters in PNG mostly cast their ballots for local personalities. So another mixed-bag coalition, bolted together after fierce haggling, seems likely. It will be weeks before the country knows what sort of a government it has chosen. Unless reformers have a strong hand, the country faces more of the economic and social stagnation it has suffered since gaining independence from Australia in 1975.

Sir Michael Somare, who was prime minister at that time, returned to power in 2002. As he seeks a further mandate, he can boast of much-improved public finances, increased economic growth, and falls in inflation and interest rates. Two rivals for the prime ministership—Sir Mekere Morauta, who held the job in 1999-2002, and Bart Philemon, whom Sir Michael sacked as finance minister last year—say it was their reforms that laid the foundations for economic recovery. Sir Michael's critics also say that public services are at least as dysfunctional and graft-ridden as five years ago.

The economy has been stronger of late but since independence PNG has done shockingly badly, while most of its Asian neighbours have enjoyed rapid development. In 1975 the country was richer than its neighbours, as measured by GDP per head. But as theirs grew sharply, PNG's stagnated, on a combination of weak economic growth and a rapidly rising population (see chart). Manufacturing and service industries remain stunted, leaving the country heavily reliant on mining and plantations. Little of the wealth from these trickles down to ordinary people, most of whom still live from subsistence farming, supplemented by a few meagre cash crops.

The country has many joined-up problems but few joined-up solutions. High crime deters investment and tourism. Partly because many parents struggle to pay the fees, school enrolments are low, meaning poor productivity. Some mothers prostitute themselves to help pay school fees, helping HIV infection spread rapidly. This is hard to curb because nurses do not want to work in poor remote areas, since their children cannot get a good education there. Teachers in turn resist rural jobs because of the lack of health care.

Nature has dealt PNG a tough hand. The country is prone to all sorts of disasters—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. Many of its people until recently lived in isolated small groups in the highlands, only being “discovered” by the outside world in the mid-20th century. One result of this is an astonishing diversity of traditions and languages (of which there are reckoned to be almost 840). Another is clan rivalry, which often turns violent. All this makes PNG a paradise for anthropologists but hell to govern.

Sir Michael sees himself as the father of PNG's independence—he has even put himself on the 50-kina banknote. He argues that, given its natural and historical handicaps, the country cannot develop at the speed that outsiders expect of it. He talks with pride of being a “great chief” in his home village. His people there rely on him to provide for all their needs. In return they offer their loyalty. Likewise in the country as a whole: the Westminster system has been “adapted” to local traditions, so members of parliament are given state money to distribute as they see fit in their home districts. Outsiders who call this corruption or patronage-politics “don't understand our culture.”

For the prime minister, it will be perhaps 15 years before PNG can afford free basic education, as his opponents are promising. Having cut the public-debt burden, Sir Michael does not want to take on new loans, even ones on easy terms, to improve the country's degraded infrastructure and public services: “We will develop in our own way,” he insists.

AFPSchool's out

Australia, still by far PNG's largest donor, has recently been sending administrators to help run the government. For a while it sent policemen too, to tackle the raskols (armed robbers) who infest the country's highways. But they were sent home after their presence was ruled to be unconstitutional—though the real motive, some say, was that Australian police had traced some corrupt schemes back to people high up in government. Frustrated at the corruption and incompetence in PNG's bureaucracy, Australia has been gradually exerting more control over how its aid is spent, funnelling an increasing share of it through local churches and charities.

PNG has the land and climate, and its people the horticultural skills, greatly to boost its agricultural output. With its pristine beaches and jungles, it could be a tourist destination to rival Bali. The high crime rate is a big deterrent to both: coffee growers risk being robbed on the way to and from market, and foreign embassies warn their nationals to think twice about spending their holidays there.

However, an even bigger disincentive to all types of economic development is that everything in PNG is too expensive, does not work, or suffers both these flaws. Electricity, telephone and internet services, in particular, suffer regular outages. The government continues to own and mismanage utilities that would be better off private. The International Monetary Fund reckons that, with reforms, annual growth of 7-8% is possible. But Sir Michael seems too wedded to his traditions to allow that to happen if he is re-elected.