Our country (and all countries) is conceived with a ‘going concern’, i.e. it will continue on into the foreseeable future long after we all are gone from our mother Earth. Into that foreseeable future, decisions on progressing the country will continue to be made based on economic rationalisation and national rationalisation. Economic rationalisation decisions are often based on the NPV (net profit value) trade-offs. National rationalisation decisions on the other hand are those reached with the country’s ‘going concern’ in mind where economic value takes less precedence. These are decisions made in the present to sustain the existence and the national identity of a country going forward and cannot be easily or readily quantified with an economic value. We pay now the economic price or we will pay later but many times over the loss of nationhood price.
When it comes to making decisions, especially in running a country and in particular in managing GoPNG SOEs, many of us are probably scratching our heads on why poor performing SOEs are not yet sold off. Often we will based our views on economic rationalisation. However, there is the ‘National Rationalisation’ side of the coin to contend with that appears to be at play in these sagas where endeavouring retention of our poor performing SOEs appear to create conflicting views.
Conflict arises when we are confronted by choices and are unable to make a decision. When we are deciding between economic and nationalism choices, there is bound to be conflict. But with our hearts in the right place and our minds vision clear, we can’t go wrong on our mission in making national rationalisation decisions that will ensure the continuity of our country into the foreseeable future (more on ‘hierarchy of loyalty’ in serving our country in the link below).
In the two articles below (and the links within these articles where I delved deeper) I covered the ‘National Rationalisation’ dilemma of maintaining a ‘National Identity’ and ‘Energy Security’ that are confronting GoPNG decision makers on our Air Niugini and our PNG Power Limited which many of us will tend to see mostly from an ‘Economic Rationalisation’ perspective.
1. Why Would GoPNG Not Rush Into Putting Down ANG As A ‘Panting Dog’?
2. Has Potential To Be GoPNG’s Strategic ‘Milking Cow’ SOE