16/04/2025
"Toea Chan Dedicates 50th Birthday to Founding Father of Kina & Toea."
On the 19th of this month, which falls this Saturday. The country's currency will officially turn 50 years old.
It will be a nostalgic moment, those who were present on the day of its launching will reflect on its journey and how far it has come.
For Toea Chan, son of late former Prime Minister and First Finance Minister Rt. Hon. Grand Chief Sir Julius Chan the date is even more special and of deep sentimental value and significance. It is the date and year of his birth & he was named after the currency.
Reflecting on turning 50 alongside the country's currency, Toea Chan said, " It is an honor celebrating my birth date with the people of Papua New Guinea. I was looking forward to celebrating with my late father who was instrumental in setting up our financial institutions and naming our currency. Unfortunately that cannot be, but his legacy will always live on."
" I am very humbled to be named "TOEA." I was born on the 19th of April, 1975. The day my father introduced our currency "KINA & TOEA." During the ceremonial launching, whilst addressing the crowd at Sir John Guise Stadium, a telegram was sent to him. He was discretely interrupted..Mr Chan your wife Stella has given birth to your fourth child, a son at Nonga Hospital in Rabaul, East New Britain Province.
" My name was proclaimed and given by our first Prime Minister Grand Chief Rt. Hon. Sir Michael Somare and our first Governor General General Sir John Guise on live radio broadcast to the nation that same day. "The Minister for Finance's wife has just given birth to a baby boy and he shall be known as TOEA!"
Toea Chan said his parents were overwhelmed and gracefully accepted the name TOEA.
Toea is a large shell mainly used by the Papuan people for trade. While Kina shells where used by the Highlands people for trade. To unite both the coastal and Highlands people of Papua New Guinea it was unanimously decided that PNG's currency be named Kina and Toea.
Toea Chan explained further why he was named "TOEA." "Being the youngest child, and son, the name TOEA was given, being smaller or lowest denominator of our currency namely the "One Toea" coin. Therefore, Toea too, can always aspire to be higher. TOEA also fitted in well with our family's Chinese Heritage - the word "toi" in Taishanese and Chinese means "boy", so it was perfect.
Prior to his Father's passing, a big 50th Birthday celebration was planned to take place at Huris, Namatanai District , New Ireland Province. " That is no longer to be, I have found comfort within myself, that now, it is my duty to celebrate my day in Honor of my father."
Toea Chan described himself as a " Living Currency" and basks with much joy and humility at the fact that his entry into this world was predestined through fate and reasons only known by God. Toea is grateful for his parents and the life they gave him.
" My father was my mentor, my idol, my protector and my shield. I am my father's son and his legacy lives on within me. Hence my given name Julius Toea Chan. I will inequivalently reciprocate the next 50 years of my life on the 19th of April every year to honor my father, Papa blo Kina na Toea, and the last Man Standing my father, The Rt. Hon Grand Chief Sir Julius Sungmen Chan.
His thoughts on the current state of the Economy in terms of the value of the Kina and Toea, " It's simple, we must learn to live within our means, don't spend money you do not have on things you don't need. Think of our future generations, they will be the ones who will be repaying back the loans.We must make the tough decisions today for a better tomorrow."
Then Finance Minister Julius Chan was tasked with the monumental duty to set up the Central Bank and introduce the currency. He did not have a background in Economics but he was quick witted and smart enough. And with the help of people like Sir Henry To Robert , Ross Garnaut and Sir Mekere Morauta they pushed through and got the job done.
With a small budget and a handful of well educated nationals they steered the former Australian territory into nationhood.
At the time, many people including foreigners and Papua New Guineans were skeptical and did not believe that PNG could make it happen. PNG had only been self governing from December 1973. But the events of 19th April, 1975 certainly proved the critics wrong. The Kina day was the climax of an exercise that had involved a tremendous amount of work and planning. In Sir Julius' words, "It was an exercise which in terms of importance and efficiency, is the equal of anything that has ever been achieved in Papua New Guinea".
"People felt the Aussie dollar was the only 'real' currency, so we introduced a dual based currency at first. But after six months, I insisted on raising the value of the kina by five percent against the Australian dollar.
"When people saw they could get more for a kina than a dollar they all became patriots. Everyone loved the kina and Australian dollars came out of hiding and were changed into kina," he said.
PNG had not yet quite reached the point of full formal political independence, but the possession of the nation's own money, together with the other measures, the self-governing administration took to serve control of the economic life, gave the people and leaders a very substantial measure of practical independence.
Sir J had always given credit to founding Governor of the Bank of PNG, Sir Henry ToRobert, who was the chairman of the currency working group, PNG's first secretary for finance, Sir Mekere Morauta and all other public and private sector officials who worked tirelessly in their responsibilities of organising the currency change-over from the Australian currency, dollars and cents to PNG's very own kina and toea.
As well, credit goes to government information and liaison officers, banks, business community, the National Broadcasting Commission, print media, police, elected and village leaders and above all our people for accepting the change.
Whilst complementing all those who participated in the currency change-over Sir Julius had often times spoken about "real control over our affairs".
This control include bringing about new opportunities to protect and raise the welfare of our citizens and the responsibilities that come with the changes.
In the nation's formative years, our founding fathers echoed the sentiments of PNG citizens to rise and make their own choices about what they want and need most and what they can do without.
The messages of pre-self-rule and independence are still very relevant today.
The new currency was certainly no means to resolving the dilemma of limited resources and unlimited wants.
A newly self-governing PNG in April 1975 had fundamental choice of what strategies to adopt to protect the value of the kina - a "hard currency" or a "soft currency" strategy.
Under the alternative of "soft currency" policy, PNG would not be too worried if incomes were raised and spending programmes above the capacity of the economy to sustain when supported by realistic levels of foreign aid.
Under that policy, the then Government would run budget deficits. The Government would borrow Kina from the Bank of PNG, but as the Government and people spend this money, the Bank of PNG would run out of its reserves of foreign currency.
This would have led PNG to being bankrupt thereby reducing the value of the Kina in terms of foreign money.
As a result, prices of goods and services would have gone up.
The logic of "soft currency" approach would have led to more Government spending and higher wages, supported by more borrowing from the Central Bank.
But, with no reserves of foreign currency, the value of the Kina would fall again.
It would have been a disastrous cycle.
At the end of it, there would not have been any more real goods or services as a result of the extra spending, but the then Government would have ruined the new currency and shattered the confidence of the people.
A "hard currency" strategy meant taking deliberate action to ensure that the external value of the Kina did not weaken.
This required two things, the accumulation and maintenance of adequate international reserves to assure the credibility of such a policy and appropriate internal policies of economic independence.
As far as the reserves were concerned, the self-governing administration had discussions underway with the Australian government over a fair and appropriate level for PNG's initial reserves once PNG left the joint currency system.
Sir Julius's team was confident Australia would agree in wanting a strong Kina and that Australia was
well aware of PNG's need for adequate reserves to make it strong. With adequate reserves, the flexibility permitted by having our own currency was very important in allowing PNG to even out its good and bad years, by running surpluses in good years and modest deficits in poor years.
This was not to allow the then Government to embark on spending programmes greater than the country could afford and sustain.
This means not spending what the country does not have.
If the administration chose that road, PNG would have headed for the swamps of soft currency with disastrous results.
The "hard currency" strategy meant facing up to the difficult choices before, rather than after PNG got itself into big trouble.
Under this policy, more wages and salaries meant less ambitious government programmes, more government expenditure on one activity means less in others.
In the short term, this meant less in the way of incomes and services.
In the long term it meant the generation within PNG of more wealth to pay for goods and services as well as revenue from development export of natural resources to provide means to greater national self-reliance and wealth.
The Central message by Sir Julius in April 1975 is still very relevant today. When he spoke on PNG being a potentially rich country and if we are careful and sensible, the hard choices are not quite so hard as they are in many other countries.
" Our village land and water provide many things we need and with skill and effort can provide them in steady increasing amounts.
"Our energy and mineral resources can with good management and the assistance of outside capital and personnel, lead to great increases in our national wealth.
"The hard currency policy requires that we spend these increases when we earn them, so that they are real increases.
Relevance of the message central to the new currency back in April 19, 1975 is very much still relevant today, 50 years on.
Creating wealth for PNG and its equitable distribution to all our citizens is a mammoth task.
Those who volunteer to be people's servants need to take heed of the messages coming from our founding Statesmen and women.
Most of what these great men and women said in the early stages of PNG's nationhood is still very relevant in 2025.
Today, PNG is handling greater wealth than 50 years ago, but much of this wealth is melting away in the long process of the delivery system and not trickling down to village level.
What has happened to our beloved kina and toea? As we reflect back on the birth of our beloved Kina and Toea, perhaps it is time for the architects of PNG's financial and other institutions to re-group and work on new strategies to deal with today's economic problems. We are facing serious challenges today, but we have met serious challenges before and come up with answers.
We are Papua New Guinea. No matter what challenges the world throws at us, "We Shall Overcome"
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