Recent moves have raised questions

Since the new government was formed on Aug 2, it has said and done most of the right things. It has won over the people by tacklin­g corruption and going after the corrupt. On the other hand, some recent decisions and political moves have raised a few questions. These are some of the controversial issues.

1. Merger of Air Niugini and Airlines PNG

The proposed merger sponsored by Sir Mekere Morauta has not gone down well with the public and rightly so. It is common knowledge that the merger will create a monopoly and eliminate competition, causing the people to pay more for travel. Regardless of how Sir Mekere justifies his actions, the public will not buy it. His privatisation model is only suitable in developed countries with many players in the market where mergers or acquisitions will improve capitalisation, efficiency in service provision and develop a competitive mature market.

Unfortunately, this is not the case in PNG as we do not have many players of similar size and capacity. The most preferred privatisation model for PNG would be partial privatisation of state-owned enterprises including Air Niugini whereby the state should consider a 49% stake of which 10% or 20% should be floated for ordinary Papua New Guineans to purchase and the remaining 51% owned by an internationally recognised industry player together with full management responsibilities.

The state will still have a say in the entity through its nominee or nominees on the board. An example in the region is Qantas Airlines. If the government does not handle this issue well, it will dismantle other good things it has achieved so far.

Pursuing Sir Mekere’s model will certainly hurt this government’s chances in next year’s election.
Many people remember the PNGBC-BSP merger with much pain. Even though capitalisation was achieved with the merger, the service has not improved and one fact that cannot escape the people is BSP has introduced so many fees, including a fee just to withdraw your own money.

2. Regional imbalance

The appointments undertaken so far by the government recently has shown to favour mostly one region of the country. We have noticed the appointments to the important economic ministries, departmental heads and other entities have and may continue to favour one region. While the government wants to remove remnants of the former regime, that does not mean replacements should be from one region. The government should be fair.

3. Movement of former ministers to the PNG Party

Former ministers and MPs recently jumped ship to join the PNG Party. This has led to many asking the real intentions and reasons. Some PAP MPs were implicated in “controversial issues”. Was this move designed to be in a position where the government can exert influence to delay, water down investigations and eventually shelve them? Was that a case of PNG Party seizing the opportunity to build its numbers and then make a move for the top post from within the government? 

One may say we only have eight or so months before the elections but, in PNG, anything is possible!
PAP’s move is, therefore, highly suspicious. I urge Prime Minister Peter O’Neill will step in to sort things out before it is too late.

P Maibuto

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