Totally Taxed Out, Lihir Island
FOREIGN mining companies in PNG earn US$500 million and do not have to pay taxes. Yet, Papua New Guinean workers are paying almost as high as 40% wage taxes each fortnight.
Why are we ripping ourselves off? Our government’s tax priorities are all wrong.
If this government is really for the people, then please give us a meaningful tax break and let us take home more from our own hard-earned pay.
It seems we are paying for the sealing of roads and other infrastructures while foreign companies such as Newcrest, extract tonnes of our resources without paying taxes. They have not even sealed the Lihir’s Kunaye Airport or the Londolovit town roads.
These companies and their executives do not need any more encouragement to make money. We give them such enormous tax breaks in the name of encouraging foreign investment.
But what is the point of having them here if, when they leave, roads remain unsealed and we have no schools, hospitals or businesses to run afterwards?
Tax the miners, not the PNG people.
Very very true. All governments are for the people. We seem to be attracting investors with soft policies and they reap the full benefits while we continue to suffer. The current and past Governments have been Government for investors and not the people. Currently we are boasting of a major mining, oil and gas boom and billions its gonna pump into the government basket. Is it not time yet to give citizens a break from the heavy taxing? Hopefully the next government may seriously consider this issue because it has lots of benefit to the people and the nation as a whole.
Benjamin
Governments have a responsibility to their peoples.
What you are saying reflects directly on the breathtaking incompetance of past governments.
They have failed to build the nation.
Instead, they have in the main spent decades strutting around like farm yard roosters crowing their Big Man politics but doing nothing for the nations.
Its more than just about taxs.
The mining industry could add huge value to PNG and its people by way of infrastructural development of the nation.
But to do this PNG needs a vision and appropriate mechanisms to implement that plan.
Without a vision there is nothing to work toward.
That I feel is very much part of the problem.
But about tax in particular……….
How is it that a nation who really needs to encourage their children by sending them through universities (or when adults want to improve their lives by going on to study at a more advanced level) can’t claim their education as a tax deductable expenses?
It’s the same story over and over again.
Ordinary PNGeans are like a little boy who hears the circus is going to be in town and he is promised the time of his life. But because he doesn’t have money to see the show he has to work to get in, so he readies his broom, mop and shovel to clean his way into the greatest show and time of his life.
Every day he hears the cheers, roars and gasps as he cleans outside but he is not allowed to be part of it because he has yet to earn his seat.
He waits and he waits, and no matter how hard he works, it’s the boy with the cash who gets a seat not him with only his sweat and grime to show as his fee.
And then the last day approaches and the tent comes down and the circus rolls out of town.
All he is left with are holes to remind him where the tent stood, wastes to show that there really were animals here, bits and pieces of colours and glitters from the amazing costumes that were worn and a stark realisation that although they shared the dream with him, he was never a part of it.
Gigi
No, thats right, the “little boy” was never a part of it.
And that little boys father and mother are the people who failed to understand that following the empty promisies of their politicians for three decades has a consequence.
The disenfranchisement of te next generation.
Blaming the Miners for this really only reflects on that mentality.
Things stay the same.
Being led like sheep is what the average PNG citizen expects.
Which is, IN FACT, the same old story.
This is a story told all over the world and its all about citizens being accountable and accepting responsibility for their governments conduct and driving change at the grass roots.
That is the difference between a real democracy and a pretence of a democracy.
Waiting for the circus is exactly what many people in PNG do.
They wait for some one else to do it all.
The rest of the world can see this but what can they do.
After all, PNG is an independant nation.
For decades the the people of PNG have “waited” for the Big Men to honor their silly infantile empty promises and have continued to blindly follow the absurd perversion of democracy practiced by the likes of Somare et al.
PNG is obviously handicapped by the “Melanesian Way” (according to Somare and his corrupt dysfunctional useless construct of a pretense of governance).
If the people of PNG cannot see this then they are going to have to wait for they day when the penny finally drops.
Far out this is insanity.
Insanity on the outside, ignorance on the inside.
i agree with all the comments by everyone in this post…but i would like to agree even more with wesley….what we are faced with today (economic hardships, lack of people &infrastructural developments etc…etc..) are the fruits of policies, visions and governance that was in place some 10 or more years ago…the economic hardships and frustrations we are all experiencing now are simply a result of ignorant, incompetent and visionless governments we had mandated thru our votes in days gone by…we now have this opportunity to vote for credible people…people who have industry experience, people who can network with professionals from within and abroad, people who can think globally and yet act locally, people whose conscience can differentiate right from wrong, people who at the end of the day can pull out a checklist and mark off their achivements, people whose actions can be really seen, felt and measured by their communities…only when we have such people…positive changes can be expected..otherwise if we keep on voting for our useless, empty drum, good for nothing wantoks, then we can still be expecting the same results and thus the same old frustrations…i will be voting wisely…i will be analyzing my candidates before i vote…i will not be voting accross regional lines or wantok lines..NO…NO…NO…i will be voting for a man/woman that my conscience tells me has those traits i’ve mentioned above…i want that person to be capable to deliver to this country and its citizens…i am fed up of the same old folks and their same old S****t…Come on…let us all be the agents of change…
Street TokTok
Good on you!
A lot of people fear change but change is a very natural thing.
We need to embrace the concept of change, get out of what we think is The comfort zone and be brave in facing challenges in life
For indeed, there is no turning back, there is only will full blindness as an alternative and its no alternative really.