Prime Minister James Marape has ordered a Task Force, to be assembled to look into the continuing rise in prices of goods and services, as well as minimum wages for low-income earners. He made this known is his New Year’s message to the people of the country. “I would like to discuss several measures your Government is taking to ease the burden on daily living, and to provide you some hope in the meantime, while we continue to seek ways to fix our country.” He said inflation is a challenged that is faced by the people on a daily basis, as prices of goods and services continue to rise while the purchasing power of our kina seems to weaken year after year. “This is especially so after coming out of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022, when the Global Inflation rate was at the highest at nearly 9 percent, unlike at around 3 percent prior to COVID-19.” “Like every other country that is connected to world trends and prices, we rise and fall with these economic tides.” “Recently, our Treasury put in some measures to cushion against the impact of Inflation, including relieving salary-earners within a certain bracket of paying Personal Income Tax, and cancelling taxes on certain household items.” Marape said this task force will be headed by the Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso and will be working with the Independent Consumer & Competition Commission (ICCC) and is expected to recommend to Government workable solutions which we hope to implement immediately. This measure and other measures in the major sectors of the country including in the productivity in Public Service, Law & Justice Sector, Health & Education that the Government will be taking to ease the burden of daily living and to provide hope in the meantime, while continuing to seek ways to fix the country. The Prime Minister also commended the people of PNG, for heeding his call to respect each other and to celebrate Christmas by observing Law & Order. “I have received reports that our people celebrated the season quietly in our towns and villages with no major incidents or reports of lawlessness.” “Thank you most sincerely. This proves my existing belief that, at heart, we are good people – accommodating, and kind with a tendency to keep an eye out for each other and becoming each other’s support system as traditionally done over centuries.” “We can co-exist with each other when we put only a little effort into recognizing our oneness as a people belonging to this beautiful, richly endowed country called Papua New Guinea.”