Introducing accounting to PNG

A second revised edition of Panditha Bandara’s book ‘Introductory Accounting for Papua New Guinea’ was launched on Thursday, April 24.
Governor-General Sir Paulias Matane officially launched the book at the Main Lecture Theatre of the University of Papua New Guinea.
Author Bandara is a lecturer in accounting at the School of Business Administration of UPNG.
Prior to joining the university he served as deputy principal and senior lecturer at Goroka Business College.
He has authored 29 publications including 25 books and four study packs for use of various levels of students.
These publications are currently used in schools and professional institutions, and universities in Sri Lanka.
The current publication is a text book in accounting for beginners.
The target readers are secondary school students, business and technical college students and university students.
The book is designed following a uniform sequence.
A chapter is divided into several sections and graded exercises have been included at the end of each section to revise prior to move on to the next section.
Throughout the book illustrative examples are given prior to the exercises, so that readers can study the example and move on the exercises.
A separate workbook is also supplied to accompany the text book for students to complete exercises.
Answers to selected exercises are also provided as guidance for students.
Text is written in simple lucid language.
Examples, business names and practical situations explained in the text have been taken from an environment familiar to the students.

By using different strategies, the author simplifies the theoretical concepts demonstrating experience in the profession.
Introduction to accounting, Accounting Equation, Double Entry Accounting, Accounting for Trading Businesses, Source Documents, Journals for Cash Transactions, Journals for Credit Sales and Purchases, General Journal, Accounting for GST, Posting Journals, Subsidiary Ledgers and Control Accounts, Petty Cash Transactions, Bank Reconciliation, Financial Statements, Balance Day Adjustments and Financial Statements: Worksheet Method are the 16 chapters included in the book.
“Accounting is a practical subject,” Mr Bandara says.
“Those who are learning accounting should learn this subject to practice.
“Therefore, skill development is very important.
“Students should work out exercises based on actual or close to actual situations.
“This book contains sufficient exercises taken from practical business situations.”
The book was published by New Age Publications of India and sells at UPNG Bookshop and PJB Rait School Supplies for K150.
The author can be contacted on email bandarap@upng.ac.pg or mobile 6875850.

Teaching our young people about running business

It was one of those typically-beautiful, sunny, Friday afternoons on the banks of the murky-brown and meandering Laloki River last Friday.
Here, 17 teachers – from Kilakila, Mount Diamond, Marianville, Gerehu, De La Salle, Iarowari, Badihagwa, Gordon, Jubilee and Laloki high schools – graduated as qualified ‘Know About Business (KAB)’ instructors after a week-long workshop at Bluff Inn outside Port Moresby.
KBA is an internationally-recognised programme of the International Labour Organisation and is being implemented in many countries of the world.
The teachers, from the National Capital District and Central province, are better placed to teach business after their graduation the KAB workshop conducted by the Small Business Development Corporation.
Kokopo Secondary School in East New Britain province is a case in point as a school which is undergoing a quite revolution as its students become real-life entrepreneurs.
To see the determination of these youngsters to be young stars, especially at a time when so many of their peers all over the country are sinking into a quagmire of poverty and unemployment, gives you so much optimism for the future.
Kokopo Secondary School is indeed a parable for the youth of Papua New Guinea.
These young men and women – Grade 9, 10, 11 and 12 students - are into various businesses such as vegetable growing, tailoring, trade stores, poultry, cooking food, laplaps, meri blouses, coconut oil, baking, and many more.
They are trained by their teachers in all facets of small business such as producing, buying, marketing, selling, bookkeeping and banking.
They are independent and no longer rely on their parents for school fees and pocket money.
SBDC has partnered the Education Department since 2006 by training teachers in the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) Division teaching in vocational institutions in the country and is now working in partnership with the Curriculum Development and Assessment (CDA) Division to have the KAB programme piloted in secondary schools.
“We believe that this is a key strategic alliance with the Department of Education for the success of KAB, given the Department of Education’s overall mandate and the existing educational system/institutions throughout PNG,” SBDC caretaker managing director Diri Kobla said at last Friday’s graduation.
“The current trend of young people leaving the education system into the labour market continues to increase every year over the past years and will continue to increase.
“The future of these young people is much left to be desired as they do not have options, appropriate entrepreneurial skills and knowledge to identify opportunities in their communities.

“The KAB programme tries to contribute towards the creation of an enterprise culture in their society, by promoting awareness among people of the opportunities and challenges of entrepreneurship and self-employment and the role of young people in shaping their future and that of country’s economy and social development by engaging in meaningful opportunities.”
The KAB programme was introduced into the country by SBDC in 2005 and programme implementation was in 2006.
Towards the end of 2007, SBDC’s collaboration with the Curriculum Development and Assessment Division to have the KAB programme introduced into the secondary curricular has been warmly accepted by the department.
Developing a business culture is the way to go forward in Papua New Guinea and it has to start at the formal education level.
The current education system in this country does not train students at an early age to be entrepreneurial.
As a result, the prospects of securing employment through formal education is becoming increasingly challenging.
Therefore, the development of entrepreneurial skills whilst they are still in a school environment is for their own benefit, if and when they do not make it further in our formal education process.
However, all this may change soon, if KAB takes off in the country.
KAB means to understand the role of business in society, its contribution to the wealth of nations and its social responsibility; entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour and to be informed how an enterprise is functioning.
KAB is a training programme for trainers and teachers in vocational education, secondary education and also higher education designed for a 120-hours course for young students between 15 and 18 years.
KAB’s general objective is to contribute towards the creation of an enterprise culture in a country or society, by promoting awareness among young people of the opportunities and challenges of entrepreneurship and self-employment, and of their role in shaping their future and that of their country’s economic and social development.
The SBDC is a government statutory authority under the Ministry of Trade and Industry charged with the responsibility of promotion and development of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Sector.
One of SBDC’s core activities is the delivery of a range of entrepreneurial skills development training.
The more notable one is the Start Improve Your Business (SIYB) training programme, which is an ILO-developed programme that it has implemented since 1996 under AusAID sponsorship.
SBDC has developed partnerships with a few educational institutions under the Department of Education in the past to train teachers and students in entrepreneurial education.
KAB is a new educational program that has been made possible through studies conducted by ILO since the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s.

In its efforts to develop SMEs and vocational education training, ILO worked with a number of projects involving government and private sector institutions to develop entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship education was seen as an important element to developing entrepreneurial attitudes for the future.
No specific training programmes, however, were available.
To close this gap, ILO in Geneva, Switzerland, and International Training Centre in Turin, Italy, provided funds in 1996 to develop a training package for Technical Vocational Education Training institutions that included entrepreneurial education and business skills.
A workshop was organised in Turin with the help of specific resource people from ILO, ITC and University of Illinois, USA, to develop the KAB training materials for trainers and instructors of TVET institutions.
The material was field tested in Kenya and then finalised and printed.
A number of countries including Papua New Guinea have adopted KAB in their National Education Program since 2000.
The experience with KAB and the increasing demand for introduction and adaptation of KAB in other countries led to a decision to review and update KAB so that it corresponded better to the needs of education programmes in a fast-changing world.
The focus of KAB has since been extended from vocational training to general secondary education.

Waiting for an apology and compensation from Timothy Bonga

Now that Timothy Bonga has been recycled as MP for Nawaeb, perhaps he can apologise to me and compensate me for the beating that I received at his hands last year before the elections.

The good people of Nawaeb and the rest of Papua New Guinea should know that for no apparent reason, outgoing Eda Ranu executive chairman Mr Bonga harassed, insulted, and then assaulted me at the Lamana Gold Club on Friday evening, May 4, 2007.

The incident happened as I was about to leave Lamana after a few “Happy Hour” drinks with workmates.

Mr Bonga confronted me as I was leaving – out of the blues - and accused me of working together with Lae MP and New Generation Party leader Bart Philemon to bring him down.

He made reference to the recent newspaper reports about his payout from Eda Ranu.

I denied this, saying that I was no longer working as a fulltime journalist, and walked out to catch a taxi, but Mr Bonga followed me outside where he punched me, pushed me to the ground, and then proceeded to kick me in full view of security guards.

I suffered a black eye, a sore face and a painful back.

This was a criminal matter, which I wanted to pursue further with police, but decided not to, lest his election chances be jeopardised.

In true Papua New Guinea style, it is only fitting that Mr Bonga compensate me, my family, and my friends, given that he has already received his big pay cheque from Eda Ranu and is now Nawaeb MP.

Malum Nalu

Port Moresby

PNG Coffee estival Website

The PNG Coffee Festival web address is below.
If you have time take a look.


http://www.pngcoffeefestival.com

Morobe taps into its human resource

Morobe province today remains one of the most-populated provinces of Papua New Guinea with nine districts.

Apart from Lae, an urban district, the other eight districts – Kabwum, Tewai/Siassi, Finschhafen, Nawaeb, Huon, Markham, Bulolo and Menyamya - are in remote, far-flung rural outposts.

Many of the thousands of children in Morobe are inadequately educated, or receive no education at all.

Picture caption: A proud Morobe Governor Luther Wenge (front), Education Advisor Murika Bihoro (left) and Deputy Administrator Geoving Bilong with UPNG graduates last.Nationalpic by LUCY KAPI.

Hundreds do not complete primary education, which means that, sadly, they ultimately cannot go on to university.

The individual and societal consequences of this chronic national crisis are profound.

Children are consigned to poverty and isolation—just like their parents—never knowing what the light of learning could mean in their lives.

At the same time, the government struggles to compete in a rapidly-evolving, global information economy, hobbled by a vast and increasingly urban underclass that cannot support itself, much less contribute to the commonweal, because it lacks the tools to do so.

It is time to rethink this equation.

Given the resources that poor countries like Papua New Guinea can reasonably allocate to education—sometimes less than US$20 (K60) per year per pupil, compared to the approximately US$7500 (K22, 500) per pupil spent annually in the U.S.—even a doubled or redoubled national commitment to traditional education, augmented by external and private funding, would not get the job done.

Moreover, experience strongly suggests that an incremental increase of ‘more of the same’—building schools, hiring teachers, buying books and equipment—is a laudable but insufficient response to the problem of bringing true learning possibilities to the vast numbers of children in the developing world.

Standing still is a reliable recipe for going backward.

Any nation's most precious natural resource is its children.

Papua New Guinea can leverage this resource by tapping into the children's innate capacities to learn, share, and create on their own.

In 2003, visionary Morobe Governor Luther Wenge, Provincial Administrator Manasupe Zurenuoc and Provincial Education Advisor Murika Bihoro decided that Morobe must not be left behind in this rapidly-globalising world.

They made a landmark decision to sponsor full tuition fees for Morobe students attending major tertiary institutions like the University of PNG, University of Technology, University of Goroka, Pacific Adventist University and Don Bosco Technological Institute.

Thus was launched the Gerson/Solulu Scholarship, named after two of the province’s most-profound educationists, Michael Gerson and Joe Solulu.

Since the scholarship scheme began in 2003, the Morobe government has spent over K9.5 million, and produced over 1,000 graduates, who do not necessarily have to work for the province.

It was a proud Mr Wenge, Mr Zurenuoc (now Secretary for Provincial Affairs) and Mr Bihoro who witnessed the first lot of 34 Morobe students graduate from UPNG last Friday.

“Most of the students who get picked to come to university are children of people in rural areas, whose economic and financial base is very low,” a proud Mr Wenge told The National.

“God, in his wisdom, has given them intellectual abilities, and also, to be someone eventually, and will serve the province and the nation in whatever discipline they are trained in.

“Unfortunately, our rural people don’t have the financial capacity to sponsor their kids to these schools.

“And we, the provincial government, felt that we must help.

“It doesn’t matter whether they are poor kids or not, but we must help by providing money to get them trained.

“We are proud, and we share the sentiments of the parents, whose kids are graduating today.
“Morobe is entitled to be an intellectual community.

“We, as the provincial government, must seriously invest in our human resources for the education of our children.

“The world is changing.

“It’s becoming an intellectual world.

“We must do something to meet the challenges of the world.

“We think that education is the way.

“Since we began in 2003, we have spent K9.5 million.

“We have already produced, so far, 900 graduates, and with this year’s graduates, the number is now more than 1,000.

“We are paying 100% parental component.

“Say, for instance, if the parental component is K5, 000, we pay the full K5, 000.

“The mission we have set to achieve our intellectuals, I think we have achieved that.

“The programme will continue and we are going to sponsor a bill in Tutumang (provincial assembly) so there is a minimum funding annually for our kids to go to school.”

Mr Bihoro said: “This is the first lot of graduates of UPNG.

“It (scholarship scheme) started because the universities started charging high fees.

“We saw that there were a lot of Morobe students coming to university from Bugandi, Bumayong and Wawin (high schools) at that.

“A lot of children are from very-remote places in Morobe.

“Parents definitely cannot afford those high fees.

“Even to this day, we recognise that parents cannot afford those high fees.

“So Governor Wenge saw the need and he started discussions with Administrator Manasupe Zurenuoc and myself.

“We saw that we could help somewhere along the provincial government budget.

“Our political leaders supported it in the Tutumang with the initial allocation of K2 million.

“For the students that are graduating today, I can see that the scheme is truly helping Morobe students.

“Students from all nine districts are represented.

“Through this scheme, we are able to know how many of our children complete secondary school and go on to university.

“We also know which particular village, Local Level Government and district they are coming from.

“I think that’s the best thing that’s happened to Morobe in human resource development at that level.”

“In terms of planning for our education system, we have captured the cream and we know where it is.”

Technical education has not gone unheeded, and the Morobe provincial government’s next project, is to sponsor students attending technical and vocational schools

“Now, we are going to work on the middle part,” Mr Bihoro said.

“Next, we should concentrate on vocational and technical education, basically, to skill our middle-level children who will not go on to university.”

Mr Wenge injected:” We will be sponsoring kids to technical schools.

“We will be building more technical skills, value education between intellectual and technical students, producing mechanics, carpenters, etc.

“We are fortunate to have so many companies investing in the city of Lae and creating job opportunities.

“Our employment rate has in fact increased, so jobs are guranteed for graduates.”

mnalu@thenational.com.pg

Gogodala Canoe Festival on again

The popular Gogodala Canoe Festival will be held from April 23-24 in remote Balimo town of Western province.

It will be a celebration of the spectacular canoes, arts and crafts and traditions of the Gogodala people.

The festival was incepted as the Balimo District Agricultural and Cultural Show five years ago and has grown to be bigger and better each year.

Picture caption: One of the spectacular war canoes of the Gogodala people. Picture courtesy of National Cultural Commission.

The Middle Fly district administration, on behalf of the Western province administration, organises the event every year with financial support from the National Cultural Commission and Rimbunan Hijau.

“In Middle Fly district, and particularly in the Gogodala area, canoes are part of the people’s lives,” said NCC senior festival officer David Taim.

“Their culture is associated with the canoe and many depend entirely on canoes for their daily survival.

“Apart from that, the Gogodala are most-prolific artists.

“Many of their creative imagination art works surround animal figures associated with clans.
“And each clan has its own war canoes which are a massive 40 metres or more in length.

“These were the war canoes used in the olden days for warfare between tribes.

Now, the Gogodala Canoe Festival strives for continual maintenance of this important culture.”

Further information on the Gogodala Canoe Festival can be obtained from Mr Taim on telephone (675) 3235120, facsimile 3259119 or email ncc@culturetok.org.pg

Iruupi, like every place you’ve never been

Typical Iruupi village house

Papua New Guinea today remains one of the most culturally-diverse and unexplored nations on the planet.
Scattered inland are many small villages, each group practicing their own native tongue and traditions, eking out a living from the surrounding land.
Travel to the remote village of Iruupi, Western province, and you will have to be prepared to do lots of walking.
To travel to Iruupi, you have to fly in to Daru Island, and then be prepared to make a crossing back to the mainland on a fiberglass dinghy.
Despite the short crossing, with a heavily-laden boat, it can be quite treacherous at times when winds make for heavy seas.
Once across the strait, the dinghy sets a course adjacent to the mainland shore along the beach and an extensive coastal coconut grove comes into view, the subject of a fierce land dispute between Badu-suki tribe and others for centuries.
The dinghy gives the mouth of the Fly River a wide berth, paying respect to its strong currents before again trekking close to the shore, and to the mouth of the Kura River about 30 minutes later.
From here the 5 to 8km journey along the Kura is much slower, low tides necessitating care is exercised in negotiating fallen trees, sand banks, the occasional goanna and keeping an ever-present watch for a disgruntled crocodile.
Finally, it reaches the landing point Lani, the mangroves and palms along the muddy riverbanks giving way to grassland and a few of the ubiquitous gardens that would later become evident.
From Lani is a narrow marsh road to Iruupi village.
A short walk by village standards, some 5-6km, weaves through overgrown grasses, bamboo forests, swamps, marshes, and surprisingly, many eucalypts.
For the people of the village, every tree, every scratch in the dirt and ever tract of water is inextricably linked to some significant story or event.
Traversing a waist-deep small swamp reveals the first sighting of traditional Iruupi houses – bamboo constructions on the outskirts of the village, supported by poles with an under storey platform where inhabitants can gather away from the heat of the day, each distinctively different in those erected in other provinces through Papua New Guinea.
Upstairs are verandahs, bedrooms and a traditional kitchen – the timber strutted floors covered with woven mats to maximise comfort (in Daru, many of the more ‘westernised’ pre-fabricated houses still have a traditional bamboo kitchen erected at the rear).
In the main village, houses are erected around the periphery, enabling the central areas to be used as common meeting, play and performance areas.
Villagers do all the hunting, cooking, washing and other chores, leaving visitors idle to simply enjoy the surroundings.
Villagers tend to their gardens each day, rich with taro, bananas, greens, melons, pineapple and other fruits planted for harvesting in the dry season.
Skilled hunters meant there is a ready supply of deer, wild pig, wallaby and cassowaries.
These will be brought back to the village strung over bamboo poles, while hunting implements are carried in a free hand.
Kupilute is a large lagoon, believed to be sourced by a well of unknown depth in the middle, and linked to creation stories of the Bewani people.
It is believed the well forms the basis of a tunnel that goes all the way to the Australian mainland.
When diving for fish, prawns or lobster in the lagoon, locals skirt the edges, fearful of an encounter with Sapi-dade, a dreaming spirit.
Paying homage to the spirits in the appropriate way ensures there is a plentiful supply of seafood.
Yet another walk to a place called Imbade reveals a broad and pristine river that must be crossed in a dugout canoe or outrigger to reach the village of Masingara, home of warring tribes and family of the Badu-suki tribe of Iruupi village, some 2-3 hours away.
Most nights are filled with exotic and traditional dance in preparation for an upcoming event.
Pointing the torch to the lagoon beyond the washhouse reveals the red eyes of a crocodile, each night keeping watch.
For the people of the village, a simple taro or coconut is treated as a prize, yet readily shared among others, to ensure no one goes without.
Each and every person is proud of and well-schooled in their culture and identity, benefiting from an almost unspoiled existence with limited contact with the white people, in contrast to some of the major centres where the negative effects of colonisation and decolonisation, subsequent to Independence, can be observed.
In leaving the village for the long walk to Lani, through a procession of well-wishers and tearful souls, one can enjoy the breathtaking scenery.
At Lani, it is last goodbyes, the sun poking through and the promise of a return in the future to renew special bonds, as the dinghy heads for the open sea.
Minji, Mamne, Ato!