Abel: Population policy vital for PNG

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, January 26, 2014 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

SPEAKING during the launch of the final figures of the 2011 census last week, National Planning Minister Charles Abel, spoke of how vital a Population Policy for the country will be in terms of development in all sectors.

He called on his department to complete the policy quickly as the nation badly needed to address the population growth which currently stands at over 3 per cent.

“We have been working on Population Policy and I want to encourage with the presence of our secretary here that we should please conclude that policy as soon as possible- it has been through the usual consultation process,” he said.

“I think that policy is also overdue, but despite that we have got a National Health Plan and within that health plan it speaks about the population issue, which talks about the cross cutting issue of population.”

He said the National Health Plan 2011-2020 itself indicated the desire to stabilize the fertility rate- making reference to his department’s sustainability program, which would be launched soon.

“We are trying to emphasise the movement to a stable population growth over a period of time,” he said.

“With our demographics we are going to see a continued growth in the population size into the foreseeable future, but our population policy needs to articulate how and when we move to a more stable underline population size.”

“The number of people you have obviously impacts on the development question, and I think we need to look at the whole issue of development in this broader context and start to examine and realise the fact that in a global context the human footprint is simply too large.”

Minister Able said the reason why the people were struggling despite the good economic fortunes currently experienced were due to the high growth of the population which amounted to nothing when spread out evenly.

“The very fact that we are struggling with the development is that If you look at the growth of the economy, yes it is wonderful, but if you bring it down to a real rate and compare it with the population growth rate- it is really difficult to sustain a GDP per capita.”

“We are relying heavily on the extractive industry and we are neglecting some of the real questions and issues we should be facing, in terms of how do we develop a sustainable economy.”

“The population is growing at a rate that we cannot simply keep up with, and what is does is it simply exaggerates all the issues around law and order, education, and health, because the more mouths you have to feed, the more money, and demands you place on the government to fulfil those needs.”