The crippling state of the PNG Middle Class

By Jerry Tollman

I grew up in a settlement and moved on to university to get a degree and I now work in company. The salary I earn is not enough to pay rent in a normal part of town. I cannot even afford to buy my own house..

I wonder why not much has been discussed by the political leadership and PNG media on the very limited "middle class" population in Papua New Guinea? This is the productive population contributing to government tax and also it is this group that bridges the divide between the rich and the have-nots. Vagrancy, settlements and street sales are all cascading results of a society with a very thin middle class. PNG has to ask serious questions about the drivers of vagrancy and unregulated urban growth in settlements. You look at the demography of most settlements around the country and you will be surprised on the calibre of people who live there. Low salary for the working class, high employment tax and an unregulated real estate industry are the key drivers for growing urban settlements in our country.

Papua New Guinea professionals in the private sector are some of the lowest paid in extractive resource industries and it is almost criminal when you look at most of their terms and conditions. Some of us who refused to have our dreams killed in our own land have ventured overseas with our careers because of the dual salary system in Papua New Guinea, particularly the private sector which discriminates between foreigners and nationals. I am a settlement boy who grew up in the settlements on the outskirts of Vanimo with many of my brothers and sisters who are struggling today all across our country. I moved to the settlements in Vanimo following my childhood in Bougainville when the Crisis hit the shores of Bougainville. I did not understand why then but I do now.

Even though I pursued education diligently to be a professional, I find myself back in the settlements. I can go back to my village and commute to work but it almost impossible being a rural boy on the last frontiers of the West Sepik border ranges. I can buy land and build a house in Vanimo and contribute to improving the quality and standard of living in my settlement community but this also proved to be a futile attempt when my own government is sleeping in bed with Asians in my own land. What do I do when public servants, politicians and land boards in small places like Vanimo are running their own schemes and making money through crooked deals? Rental costs are astronomical due to no regulation whatsoever by the government.

I tried sending applications after applications and making plans to buy a small piece of land and build a house and contribute to my small town and community but unless you bow down to dubious means and bribe someone, you get nothing. All across Papua New Guinea, you will find similar stories of a dysfunctional and corrupt public service when it comes to awarding/tendering of contracts, land and justice to its citizens. My experience may be extreme but I hope it explains the bottom line on the frustrations the youths in Morobe are expressing. I do not live in Lae but being a settlement boy myself, their laments makes complete sense to the silent majority of Papua New Guineans.

The dreams of young honest Papua New Guineans who have pride for their country are being killed by bad policies on tax and discrimination in work place – both from organizations and other Papua New Guineans who no longer have pride for this country. You can be called a Petroleum Engineer in a company like Oil Search but find you are treated like a dog compared to your expatriate colleague even though you both have attained high honours from overseas universities for your first degrees and you both are doing exactly the same job on rotation. You raise a voice and you have management advising you with threats like “we are the only game in town young man”. I turned to my government and my government is in bed with the foreign corporations and poachers planning their next loot.

I look around me whenever I go back to my dwelling in the settlements and whole generation of young people after me do not dream anymore like my generation did when we were growing up – I grew up there and I can honestly say it is not their fault or their parents. Most of those kids are creative but just need some support to acquire basic life skills before they could be empowered. I looked around for my generation and most of my brothers and sisters have their dreams killed by a government that fails them and deny them the hand that leads to the promises this great nation holds – many have completed colleges but are roaming the streets looking for a break.

I can go on about our leaders but at the end of the day, we Papua New Guineans have to start asking some hard yet honest questions and demand excellence from whoever gets to represent us in political leadership of the country. They make decisions that can decide the future of us and our children.

God bless PNG