I saw this to be so true in Papua New Guinea and we have to break this culture.
I share this here and hope it impacts on us to break this cycle
BY PETER KORUGL
At any given day, you go into Boroko, you will note a few dirty looking lot, sitting at various locations, with a piece of cloth spread in front of them calling out for a 10 toea or 20 toea. This is life for the beggers in the city.
Elsewhere a Haus krai goes up and it remains for weeks while the body of the deceased is kept in the morgue, for the same period until the relatives think they have collected enough money to spent on the burial expenses and pocket the rest.
Somewhere in the Highlands a family is planning a bride price payment, and unlike in the past, this family does not have enough cash or pigs but will still go ahead and start the process. In the next few weeks, they will collect enough donations to pay the bride price and spend the left overs on themselves.
Somewhere in the public service, a govt department is planning it's annual conference and it's organising committee goes to work. The committee will write to as many business houses for donations and sponsorships to host the conference. When enough money is collected, the department will go ahead with the meeting, using the funds it collected to pay for the cost.
In any sporting codes, clubs always write to business houses for donations and sponsorships. With the donated funds, the clubs will buy the sporting gear for their teams and use most of it on administration costs.
When the government hand down its budget every November, it's always a deficit budget, meaning our govt is planning to spend money it does not have or make so we have to go borrow to make up for the shortfall in the budget.
It is true what some people say about us. We are a country and people that love spending money we don't have or make. It's a shame really when you look at what we have.
Spending money we don't have or make is in our DNA.
Sometimes we have to learn to live within our means.
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