SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT


Are conflicting interests at play here? That is the question we ask as we watch the Government move to deal with the problems at one LNG site in Hela.

The problems at Hides 4 blew up on the previous Friday. The landowners moved in and stopped all work on the gas conditioning plant and other works. They demanded that a government team visit them and address them. Last week, we were told that the Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare appointed Foreign Affairs Minister, Don Pomb Polye, as the trouble shooter, to lead a delegation to Hides to talk to the landowners. Polye announced last Monday that he was taking a team in. He invited Petroleum and Energy Minister William Duma, Finance and Treasury Minister Peter O’Niell, other senior government ministers and all MPs from the Southern Highlands to go with him for the meeting.

The objective of that mission was to negotiate for the immediate resumption of work at the project site and to find ways to address the landowner concerns. The Polye team was to leave the next day, which was Tuesday. That morning, only Polye and James Marabe, the Minister for Education, were at the Airlines PNG terminal, with a group of landowner leaders who were boarding the chartered flight for Hela.

There was no sign of any other Government minister. Southern Highlands Governor Andersen Agiru was at the airport too and boarding a flight but he was on his way to Mendi to attend the Provincial Assembly session. There was no sign of Francis Potape, the Minister assisting the PM on LNG matters or Arthur Somare, the Minister for Public Enterprise.

When the government team landed, the landowners were obviously disappointed. They wanted to talk to the key Government ministers, who were heavily involved in the LNG project from the beginning. They were the state ministers that negotiated the Umbrella Benefit Sharing Agreement and they were the ministers that negotiated the Licensed Based Benefit Sharing Agreements.

And we assume that they were the ones that may have made the ministerial commitments to the landowners. We joined many Papua New Guineans out there who are now wondering why these men were not on the plane to Hides to meet with the landowners. We refuse to believe that they were scared. Hardly, for the police are there. Their refusal to attend the meeting tells us that something is not right in the government.

Polye returned with his team on Wednesday to Port Moresby. Yesterday he had an audience with Sir Michael, where he briefed him on the meeting and put forward some recommendations for the government to act on to “find a long and sustainable solution” to the LNG issues. Apart from settling all outstanding MOA funds and commitments, Polye noted that there was no presence of the government and the public service machinery at the LNG sites, which must be addressed as a priority.
He recommended that government departments like Petroleum and Energy, Commerce and Industry, Environment and Conservation, National Planning, Finance and Treasury and Lands must be represented in the LNG project areas to deal with LNG issues, that the government to make sure that a proper social mapping was done to identify the real landowners, that there was a need for a corporate structure to be created to support, coordinate and drive all landowner business participation in the LNG project.

At 5.05pm the same day, the PM’s media unit released a press statement. In that statement, it was announced that Deputy PM, Sam Abal was tasked by PM to deal with all LNG matters. So Mr Polye is replaced. The question is why?

 
Sir Michael explained Mr Abal is Chairman of the National Planning Committee so will be the government’s focal point for settling all outstanding LNG issues. If that is so, then why was he appointed to lead the government team to Hides in the first place? We may be accused of speculation, but we are of the view that all is not well in the government.

The divisions and distrusts are still there. In the latest case, we see the forces in government at work again and that is to pit Abal against Polye. And the PM is entertaining this one

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