At the heart of this function is the maintenance of our currency at a stable and respectable value, taking into account variables like imports and exports, expenditure, capital outflows and similar relevant activities.

Villagers who innocently go about growing yam or taro or broccoli to sell at market do not realise that the government’s management of the currency directly impacts on their ability to meet expenses for the basic necessities of life.

The public servant on fixed wages, or the security guard on minimum wages, feeding a large family, do not realise that what this meagre wage can buy depends on the government’s management of the economy. And at the heart of the economy is the currency.

The businessman importing or exporting goods and commodities is all too aware of the impact of the currency, as it plays out in exchange rates, on his business.

A higher kina value relative to the Australian dollar, the US dollar and the Euro helps businesses paying for imports in those currencies, as they don’t need to fork out too many kina,.

A lower kina value assists exporters as their return in US or Australian dollars multiplies in kina receipts.

The village farmer who grows broccoli goes to the market and sells broccoli. In the afternoon, on their way home, they realise they make the family meal for the night, so they buy a packet of rice and a tin of fish, only to realise the prices are way too much, and there is no change left to take home.

Not much to show for all those months of labour in the broccoli garden. It all goes in one meal.

The next time, the farmers gets smart; they increase the price of a single sprig of broccoli to double what it was previously. The innocent security guard on fixed wages goes to the market, only to find that the broccoli is just as expensive as the imported store goods.

In the past the security guard’s wife used to sell buai and loose cigarettes outside their shared home to supplement their income. However, since the city‘s bans on such hawkers, they can’t make ends meet. The adults go without meals and have one meal a day, but what about the babies and children.

Our currency is no longer a subject for bureaucrats and politicians to discuss and deal with behind closed doors. We can no longer ignore it or pretend it does not impact on the common citizen, or even the serious businessman.

For far too long, we have allowed banks and a few interested individuals to manipulate it and make mountains of money to the disadvantage of the common citizen.

If anyone compares the level of disparity between the buying and the selling rate of the kina against any currency in the world, this disparity, and the margins our commercial banks like BSP, Westpac and ANZ are making is nothing short of criminal.

Sometimes I wonder why our Police chase after common thieves on the streets who are stealing to buy food to survive in this city while the commercial bankers who steal so much from the people under the guise of legitimacy get away scot free.

All because of a Central Bank Governor and his text book economists, and equally ignorant politicians who have lost touch with the daily gruelling realities of our people.

Crime in any community does not pay. However, we have some people stealing small things to make ends meet and feed their families, while those who are stealing big time under the guise of legitimacy, like banks and bankers, are stealing for that next overseas holiday or the third property to add to their portfolio, or for their annual returns and the balance sheet to look great.

A large proportion of commercial banks’ profit margins are directly contributed to by foreign currency trading on buy and sell rates, with margins that would not be allowed in any other country in the world.

The commercial banks and their annual profit margins in this country are equally criminal.

In no other country in the world would they be allowed to get away with what the commercial banks get away with in this country. They are feeding off the misery of the people, and the Central Bank does not have the capability to properly regulate their fees structures, currency margins, and profit margins, to properly serve this nation.

In this regard, there is a serious need for an independent Banking Ombudsman with powers to regulate some of the functions and ameliorate on behalf of bank customers and common people.

The kina is admittedly a low band currency, and outside this country and aside from our trading partners, only few people speculate or even trade in it.

We are an import oriented and an import dependent nation. Our exports are predominantly by big foreign owned companies. Very few exporters are PNG citizen owned. For example in the agri-forestry sector where our citizens participate in exports, our biggest exporters are mainly foreign owned, with a slice of 90% of the business.

The fisheries sector is 95% is foreign owned. The mining and petroleum sector is almost 95% foreign owned and operated. Most of the money coming into this country is used in extractive activity, to extract resources out of this country to the ultimate benefit of people who don’t live in this country, or who will one day retire with their wealth elsewhere.

For far too long the government has paid scant regard to the currency, and its relative value.

In the right political hands, it is a great tool to enrich this nation and prosper Papua New Guineans, but we have the fools and the blind trying to lead a nation of the compliant, the complacent and those who simply are not in a position to know.

Politicians spend as if there is no tomorrow, without any regard for the health of foreign reserves and the inverse effect of spending on the currency.

How can the simple security guard on fixed wages, and the mother growing broccoli in the village, love admire and adore their political leaders when they have clearly failed the people?

There are many ways to address a sliding currency. One is to peg the currency. This is not a new discussion. We have had many talks about a regional currency that have come to naught.

The issue of a sliding currency is an urgent one. We have heard many calls in the past for pegging it, and some against it. Those against it always use export revenue as a basis of dissuading bankers and finance ministers.

However, that argument is a fallacy as most of Papua New Guinea’s export sector is foreign owned and foreign controlled. Those against it have their own agenda.

As I said before, we are a high import dependent country. Until the day we change that imbalance, until the day we produce basic food items locally and cheaply, and increase the real value of our people’s wages and salaries, we have to address the slide in the currency by pegging it to help the people.

A deliberate decision needs to be made now to peg our currency to either the Australian dollar, our major trading partner’s currency, or another stable currency.

We have too much currency colonialism with far too many of our resources being ripped out by exporters or people on foreign currency salaries without much recompense in real value back to our people who have to struggle to meet their daily needs.

What we are paid in kina buys very little imported food and goods while foreigners live well on the back of our resources.

Our politicians must cease being silent audiences or ignorant participants in this systematic rip off.

Enough is enough, Mr Prime Minister. You can live well and jet all over the world, but what about the rest of us? Peg our currency, and give us true value now.