Every school a good school?

Exam answers extrordinare.

Latest pictures of Port Moresby's building boom

New Gateway Hotel Conference Centre and apartments at Seven-Mile

Kenmaiti Fried Chicken joint at the new Steamships commercial centre in Gordon

Work starts on Ela Vista on Touaguba Hill overlooking Ela Beach

Long-established Windward Apartments overlooking Ela Beach with Manuabada Island in the distance

Signboard at Ela Beach Hotel redevelopment

Work at Ela Beach Hotel

Ela Beach Hotel suites signboard

Gateay Hotel, Seven Mile

Gateway Hotel Conference Centre and apartments project signboard

Gateway Hotel Conference Centre as seen from the front gate of the hotel

Took a drive around Port Moresby this morning and here are more pictures of just a few of the many new buildings mushrooming all over the city.

Port Moresby's right now in the midst of an unprecedented building and construction boom.

Planning factors for Papua New Guinea's Vision 2050

By REG RENAGI

In future, the Papua New Guinea government must look over the horizon at the core permanent features of our geography and domestic situation.

Some important factors for government strategic planners to consider in our Vision 2050 strategy are:

• Distances from major international markets;
• Strategic environment - our homeland is girthed by sea to the east with Solomon Islands and south with Australia, and a common western land border with Indonesia. Hence, our main strategic interests are held in common;
• Demography. We have a low but growing population base with a proportionally small fiscal base. The country over time can not sustain a large ineffective bureaucracy nor incur any large public-cost factors. Therefore, the general plan needs flexibility and professionalism will be needed if our workforce is to be properly trained, and adequately resourced to support future development goals; and
• National interests. The wide spread of our national interests, most of which are shared with other countries, and can only be pursued in a collective endeavour. Thus, collective security has been our basic national development posture for 34 years.

More over, we should also include these three key features to be included in PNG’s strategic planning system:

• Comprehensiveness. The strategic planning system must cover all public expenditure works as well as equipment. This should give a balanced view of government funding and spending in its entirety;
• Transparency. The long term strategy must show the content and state of all plans, programs at all stages, from initial identification through to the commitment of funds and implementation of projects; and
• Strategic linkages. The government must link through a clear chain of logic, its strategic development policy framework through capabilities required to carry it out at all levels of administration from national to local governments. The link between national strategy and spending should be kept more clearly before parliament and government. Thus, governments can better balance policy aims with available resources and better assess the consequences, and risks from any imbalance.

Here, certain strategic deductions must be made with suitable hedging strategies adapted to address demographic trends like population growth, education drop-outs at various levels of the education spectrum (primary to tertiary, including vocational), competition with the private sector, effects of the HIV/Aids pandemic on human capital, including potential brain-drain of our workforce professionals, skilled/semi-skilled labour leaving various employment sectors within government for industry here, and offshore.

For best allocation of resources, good strategic plans: whether short, medium and long-term must be constantly reviewed and maintained. These action plans reflect the need to think ahead in the long term business of sustainable development investment. A careful planning process is needed to ensure that funding and the required development capabilities are available when called for. The next few years will see further reviews carried out as part of what will be a continuous improvement strategy and process, feeding into our national strategic planning system.

The writer is a former PNG Defence Force strategic planner

Strategic management of Papua New Guinea's development

By REGINALD RENAGI

 

Papua New Guinea has a new future vision.

The government’s national strategic plan (NSP) framework 2010 - 2050 recently renamed Vision 2050 and launched by the PNG government is our first long-term plan since independence. 

This framework forms a basis for a strategic 40-year development plan to 2050.   

The key to formulating a sound national development policy lies with good strategic planning for the future. 

PNG must first and foremost, develop sound strategic planning mechanisms built into its overall strategic political and government planning systems. 

The country’s overall strategy must be derived from a combination of factors, including the development of a highly professional, competent and a well-resourced and equipped national workforce (both public and private sector).  

This future workforce must be shaped by a rigorous application of sound planning principals, ass the lead-times for governments are either short (five years) or long-term (beyond a two-term administration).

 Therefore, strategic planning must both look to medium and long term, as well as our ongoing needs to ensure that adjustments are made to cover uncertain ties, and risks that may emerge in future. 

The present improved economic conditions in recent times must now be maximised for long-term growth and prosperity.

 This directly impinges upon future financial assumptions on which a “whole of government” approach taken including related forward planning considerations will be based. 

There are significant challenges with our present political and government systems that must be critically addressed today.

Government planners, therefore, face a period of growing complexity and uncertainty. 

In addition, through a process of economic reform and restructuring, PNG will become a more open and competitive market economy. 

To better achieve this, the private sector is expected to support future developmental efforts to contribute towards the NSP in the next few years.

 Some key factors of change national planners must fully take into account are:

·        Government modernisation programs within the region;

·        The future impact of economic interdependence and changing trade alignments on international relationships, and whether this will produce stability or new tensions;

·         The economic dynamism of the Asian countries, while increasing the stability of the region, but also if sustained over the longer term, will bring changes in our relative national strength;

·         Continuing economic and social problems in the south-west pacific;  and

·         National aspirations for a better future quality of life and wellbeing.

PNG’s strategic environment poses many development challenges. 

We are now facing varying levels of transnational issues with serious security implications that the government must critically addressed. 

Thus, development priorities of national capabilities must be driven principally by our future vision, mission and core values and guiding principles derived from the national constitution.

Careful planning of future development must ensure we have the right level and mix of state management capabilities necessary for national self-sufficiency and reliance over time.

 Therefore, development efforts must be at an appropriate level and can be economically sustained within national resources. 

This approach provides a rigorous, enduring basis for disciplined planning as our future strategic circumstances become more demanding.

PNG’s long- term plan covers 40 years and in that timeframe, the government needs to also factor in forecasted future risks with suitable in-built hedging strategies designed to minimise risks that may affect final outcomes.

 The task for national planners is not easy but to make certain that our strategic framework is comprehensive enough to cope with future contingencies, not yet discerned by the most far-sighted government analyst. 

 

Reginald Renagi is a former PNG Defence Force Chief, now a maritime school trainer and writes as a hobby.

 

What a wonderful world

After all the bad news from Port Moresby and Papua New Guinea this week, it was quite refreshing to take my children for a walk to the Gerehu shopping centre this morning and see all the trees in full green and flower.
It reminded me of one of my all time favorite songs, Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World
I see trees of green...red roses too
I see em bloom...for me and you
And I think to myself...what a wonderful world
Or this poem by Joyce Kilmer
Trees

Joyce Kilmer. 1886–1918

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.