From Highlands to the islands, GE partners with PNG
Despite revisions in International Monetary Fund forecasts for PNG’s GDP growth in 2015 (from 15% to 9%), the climate is favourable for positive development in PNG’s power, healthcare and water infrastructure, and in working with communities to build their capacity to take advantage of technology. Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s aim to bring electricity to 70% of his people by 2030 is both admirable and ambitious, as he simultaneously tries to rein the country’s budget deficit (forecast to be 3.8% of GDP in 2016) into line and return to surplus by 2020.
Says Belinda Shaw, chief financial officer of GE Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, “We’re investing time and effort into trying to help the country work through what it needs. We’re focusing on outcomes for PNG, as opposed to just selling them equipment.” Sydney-based Shaw has been in her current position since October 2015 and is committed to travelling every three weeks to Papua New Guinea. High on her agenda are: mentoring managers in country; hiring PNG nationals for roles in Australia; and spreading the financial knowledge she has gained over six years as a corporate auditor working in 40 diverse global markets, to help foster the financial capacity that will fund the country’s substantial development needs.
This is one long-term relationship
GE has delivered on projects in Papua New Guinea since 1952, when it supplied generators and turbines for a hydro-electric scheme serving Port Moresby. In 2014 the company deepened its ties to the country when John Rice officially opened GE’s first office in the capital, which is run by local country leader Peter Loko. Loko, who has long experience in both telecommunications and municipal roles in PNG, has already facilitated several projects, from massive to small-but-impactful.
ExxonMobil’s US$19 billion PNG LNG operation, which extracts and processes natural gas, is powered by 13 GE aeroderivative turbines and had celebrated its first full year of LNG production in 2015. Last year, two trailer-mounted GE TM2500 gas- or diesel-powered turbines were deployed to boost the power of major cities Port Moresby and Lae, reducing crippling blackouts. And in Enga Province, seven donated GE Vscans—hand-held portable ultrasound machines—are part of a pilot project with the Papua New Guinea Tribal Foundation to improve the survival rates of mothers and babies.
The TM2500 generator in Lae prior to its commissioning in 2015.What's better than virtual reality?
“The demonstration effect is really important in Papua New Guinea,” says Jenny Hayward-Jones, director of the Myer Foundation Melanesia Program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. In healthcare as in power supply, she says, there simply isn’t enough penetration of beneficial technologies in PNG for people to understand the possibilities. “Because the number of people who have access to electricity is so low, one of the major problems is that not enough people in the country understand how access to electricity can deliver a difference to their lives—for example, your child can have better access to education, and lighting improves safety, especially for women and children.
“The kind of education achieved by successful projects can be an enormous help in unblocking future development,” she says.
Jenny Hayward Jones, director of the Myer Foundation Melanesia program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy and Serena Sumanop, co-chair of the Australia-Papua New Guinea Emerging Leaders Dialogue. Image credit: Lowy Institute for International PolicyGE is working both on improving the efficiencies of existing generator-based power capacity, and on a broader plan for “linking it all together with a grid, so you don’t just have individual sources of power, but you can use the grid to move power around as it’s required,” says Shaw. The company’s recent acquisition of power giant Alstom provides it with advanced technology and expertise in integrating power supplies. The GE Grid Solutions team has also spent time in PNG this month.
Encouraging skills development and confidence among the PNG workforce is high on GE’s list of priorities. Among its current initiatives: GE is principal sponsor of the Lowy Institute’s 2015 Australia-Papua New Guinea Emerging Leaders Dialogue, a year-long program that builds professional connections, cultural appreciation and friendships between 20 young leaders in Australia and Papua New Guinea. In addition, GE’s graduate engineering program has just hired two PNG nationals to work across its Oil & Gas business in Australia—each engineer will experience 8 months in each of three different work environments. And Belinda Shaw is recruiting PNG nationals for the company financial management program (FMP).
“In our experience,” says Hayward-Jones, “GE cares about more than just making money, about having an impact in the country and helping it to develop.”
An intelligent internet of helpful connections
Shaw is also passionate about creating informal networks of mentoring, particularly in the financial arena, which will be paramount to driving development in tandem with government goals for deficit reduction. She recently visited Port Moresby General Hospital: “It was so humbling … they’ve done so much. The CEO Grant Muddle is phenomenal in terms of what he’s changed since he got there three years ago. As a mother walking around the maternity ward, I felt that I could help to do more. I’m going next time to have a coffee with the hospital’s finance leader to try to connect him with useful companies in other countries.
“In healthcare, I think Vscans are a great way of getting out to rural areas. We’re also thinking about what the biggest need is in Papua New Guinea, and how we can achieve that outcome. It may be spending more time and effort in the hospitals, and being smart about how we help them finance that—moving from a capital-expenditure (CAPEX) model to an operational expenditure (OPEX) model, where they pay a monthly fee for vital equipment and services.”
In Enga Province, seven donated GE Vscans—hand-held portable ultrasound machines—are part of a pilot project with the Papua New Guinea Tribal Foundation to improve the survival rates of mothers and babies.GE has had success with such models of financing life-changing infrastructure in other developing nations such as Kenya. In the Kenya Healthcare Modernisation project, begun in January 2015, the company is partnering with the Kenyan Ministry of Health to transform radiology infrastructure in 98 hospitals across the country’s 47 counties. The “wing-to-wing” solution package for Kenya includes financing, technology and training.
Raiding the GE Store of technology and expertise will allow Shaw, Loko, Rice and their colleagues to tailor innovative solutions and outcomes for Papua New Guinea. “PNG really wants options for how it can pay for the equipment and service it needs. We might be able to say, ‘If we produce the equipment in the US, we can look at getting EXIM [the Export-Import Bank of the United States] to provide loans that would support the purchase of vital equipment,’” says Shaw, giving just one example of how the global GE ideas trust might solve a funding problem. “Marrying the financing teams with the equipment teams; the Power team with the Grid Solutions team is where the GE Store can really come together.”
A multinational, flexible, cross-business approach delivered in an ongoing consultative manner may be what Papua New Guinea most needs to advance its development. Hayward-Jones suggests that three essential ingredients for successful business relationships in Papua New Guinea are the need for spending time listening and talking, patience and a long-term view.
“I think Papua New Guineans would stress the need for consultation. Because of the complex cultural obligations they have, decision making has to come from a very detailed consultation process with everyone in the village. Companies that recognise this and spend a lot of time listening and talking before they make decisions on how much they’re going to invest, or how many people they’re going to employ or what return they’re going to give to the community—that listening process and making sure you’ve reached out to everyone is critical.
“Understanding the community, what drives them and what they need, is a good general approach,” she says.