By CHRISTOPHER YANDAWAI
MEMBER for Rai Coast Kessy Sawang today, for the first time as new Minister for Labour and Employment in Marape-Rosso Government, had an opportunity to address the Parliament on unemployment issues in the country.
She was given the opportunity following questions raised by Nipa Kutubu MP Dr Billy Joseph on the unemployment crisis and job security issues in the country.
Dr Billy asked Sawang to inform the Parliament and the people of Papua New Guinea what her strategies were to deal with the issue of joblessness in the country. “As leaders we must accept the fact that there is unemployment crisis in the country,” he said.
“I would like to ask what your strategies are in dealing with this crisis.
“My second question relates to jobs that our people can do being taken over by foreigners.
“That is an urgent matter and I think the Minister needs to inform the house what her plans and strategies are to address this.”
Minister Sawang admitted that currently the country is facing an unemployment crisis because the economy is not big enough to create employment opportunities for young people coming out of schools.
“The Government is aware of the challenging times that we are going through today,” she said.
“We are dealing with challenges of high inflation, low formal sector unemployment and a skills gap, as well as the vulnerabilities and risks faced by majority of our people, who are in the informal sector.
“Under the recently-launched Medium Term Development Plan IV, the government has ambiguous but achievable plans of creating a million jobs by 2027, and the plan actually goes in detail where those jobs in each sector will be created.
“As a Minister responsible, my job is to come up with strategies to enable the private sector, who actually drive the employment agenda because the government does not provide enough employment opportunities.”
The Minister further highlighted some tasks that she will be undertaking in respect to addressing the unemployment crisis in the country.
“First and foremost, we will undertake a review of the aging Labour and Employment Laws and amend them accordingly,” Sawang said.
“Under these amendments, we will be looking at adjusting the minimum wage rate of K3.50 per hour.”
“We also aware of the problem of data gap.
“This is the biggest problem I am looking into because availability of data leads to informed decision-making and better policy formulation.
“The issue of job security, Prime Minister James Marape has made a public announcement that currently there are about 41, 000 jobs in the hands of foreigners. “One of my jobs is to ensure that 10,000 of those (jobs) come back to Papua New Guineans.
“That is a big call and I have already tasked my department secretary to put together a committee to look into this. “But I want to assure the House and people of PNG that the Marape-Rosso Government is keen on taking back jobs in the hands of foreigners and giving them back to PNGeans.
“Samtin bilong PNG mas come back long PNG (What belongs to PNG must return to PNG).
“I have already established dialogue with the extractive industries, especially with TotalEnergies, to conduct a national workshop targeting the nationalization of the workforce in the national content plan.”
The Minister is expected to make a detailed ministerial statement on all these in the coming days.
