Oro Governor & Leader of PMC party Gary Juffa moves to Opposition

PNGBLOGS 

After a unanimous resolution today from the ruling party PNC, Oro Governor & Leader of the Peoples Movement for Change (PMC) Party Gary Juffa will move from middle bench to opposition. Governor Juffa was in the middle bench.

The middle bench in PNG’s parliament has always been a place where individual MP’s not aligned with the parliament’s ruling party(s) or its leader(s) sit. Oro Governor & PMC party leader Gary Juffa not wishing to get entangled in corrupt practices or MP’s has always purposefully selected to sit in the middle bench since 2012 when he was first voted in.

Today however after a unanimous decision by the PNC party, Governor Juffa must move from middle bench to opposition. It is also less than a year since leader of PNC party and Prime Minister Peter O’Neill sought to oust member for Kandep Don Poyle from government to opposition as ABC reported on 7th May 2014 “Don Poyle…was sacked by Mr O'Neill in March for refusing to sign a $AUD1.2 billion loan from the UBS Bank for PNG to buy a new stake in Oil Search. Mr O'Neill is now seeking to force him off the government backbench and into opposition”. Further in mid June last year member for Sinasina-Yonggamugl Open Keranga Kua was sacked as the Attorney General by Prime Minister O'Neill. In a statement made, Mr O'Neill said "Mr Kua was sacked for opposing the government's attempts to change the constitution in relation to votes of no confidence". It appears any MP which critiques decisions or the lack of the government’s action is ousted from government.
In the official letter from PNG’s ruling party PNC Governor Juffa was advised that he has been relocated from government (middle) bench to opposition.

In the letter leader of government business James Marape said “I am sure your new location would allow you to continue in your "debate on" national issues the way [you have] been going on for some time.”

What has Governor Gary Juffa done [“debate on”] in recent months and currently doing to cause members of PNG’s ruling party PNC to collectively decide that he be relocated from the middle bench to opposition?

There are five (5) issues of utmost national concern that Governor Juffa has advocated on:

1) Demise of law and order in PNG, notably the ever apparent increase of Police brutality

2) Reduction of income taxes for PNG citizens

3) West Papua’s Independence

4) Illegal logging and illegal land grabs

5) Lack of equal distribution of the nation’s wealth & fair disbursement of Provincial funding
In a rant on 6th of January 2015 Governor Juffa suggested to the government:

1 –Ban round log exports; engage in sustainable tree farming in areas already deforested; preserve the remaining forests while negotiating with global partners on carbon credit arrangements or other forms of sustainable agriculture activities and collect the outstanding taxes in the billions due to the State.
The banning of round log exports is absolutely necessary to preserving our rainforest resources and there are so many alternatives as to how to utilize these forests for greater good in a manner where the benefits will be tangible for more! The forestry industry in PNG has since the 1980s gradually fallen into the hands of a few big players who with their brokers, agents and their minions and their corrupt public officials and whoever they can buy in parliament. These characters have devised clever and ingenious methods of tax avoidance using transfer pricing systems that have ensured that they have paid virtually a pittance in taxes due on the actual volume and quality of their exports whilst ensuring that a patch the size of several football fields of the world’s third largest rainforest in the world disappears daily. A company engaged under dubious means to “verify” the exports, SGS LTD, only checks 10% of all shipments and even then highlights in every report it has produced since, significant discrepancies in exported volumes and species that the companies are NEVER penalized for. WHY? One wonders. So how hard is it to ban round log exports, audit the activities of these companies and force them to pay their taxes and prosecute them for the various acts of criminality they have engaged in to achieve their transnational criminal objectives (make profit at WHATEVER cost).

A few simple solutions:
- Action the SABL Report recommendations. Have the PNGDF impound all the machines and detain all the illegals throughout PNG and have the IRC Audit the companies involved after freezing ALL (yes, companies, property, shares, liquid assets etc) and come up with an assessment and have them pay in 7 working days

– make this absolutely non-negotiable.
- Prosecute and jail all who are illegally in PNG and all who have somehow been involved in the frauds uncovered by the SABL Reports. This should include the public servants named who are still in their positions of power and in fact many have been promoted including one to Departmental Head!

- Auction off all the property and blacklist the individuals involved after they have served their jail term (we should deport the PNG citizens too who helped them along with them)
2 – Deport Djoko Tjandra. This is a no brainer. The guy is a listed INTERPOL FUGITIVE wanted for crimes in INDONESIA. Who cares if he has his own jet and funded a few pollies elections and is suddenly a citizen of PNG? DEPORT HIM!

3 – Review all fishing licenses and again, have them all pay their backdated taxes! This industry is also in the control of transnational criminal entities that have managed to manipulate this nation’s leaders and bureaucrats and are virtually harvesting our marine resources for FREE! Mother ships conveniently anchored just outside our EEZ feed several fast boats who enter PNG waters and fish at will and whim using banned techniques and equipment and raping our seas. They are now so brazen that they attack our own people and threaten them. We need to take a leaf out of INDONESIA’S book on how to deal with illegal fishing by simply dropping bombs on these floating crime sprees. Meanwhile review all those on shore and revoke all the tax holidays we have granted which DO NOT benefit PNG as much as they claim they do. Ban all travel to PHILIPINES by bureaucrats who seem to love going there to negotiate deals to sell off chunks of our marine resources with virtually no thought to the future. Again, like the forest sector, we can develop alternative means to developing our marine resources that would earn us far more if we simply made the effort and cared.

4 – Revoke Seabed Mining. Again, this is a no brainer. I am told many politicians that we could NOT get out of this deal because it would result in PNG being sued internationally and the fear of having to pay oodles of money. That’s crap. We are simply making excuses. This ridiculous and dangerous project will earn us near nothing and yet endanger our marine resources and threaten the well-being of our coastal communities who rely on marine resources to be self-sustainable. It is an untried effort and many learned scientists have spoken against the unknowns. Of course, those in government know best and have agreed to it claiming amongst other things that it is an opportunity to get into a pioneer industry. Really? This is why we refuse to accept that every other economy turned it away because they simply were not going to take the risk and they actually listen to their people? Yes, that’s the arguments in parliament being thrown around. Many members are against it but say nothing. And we don’t even have the laws in place to regulate or administrate or enforce the activities. But when has that ever stopped us from bulldozing ridiculous policies that oppress our people? Yes, hardly ever. This is why Mining Minister accepted 20,000 signatures of concerned landowner groups of most of the coastal provinces in October 2012 and promised to respond in 2 weeks. He still hasn’t responded two and a half years on. Meanwhile the company is moving full steam ahead with funding from PNG…so here we are instead of listening to our people, actually ignoring them and then funding the very activity they are against! How crazy is that? Well, its to be expected, in the land of the unexpected. I predict fracking will be next and woe befall us as greed will turn PNG into the land of Chaos and Anarchy.

5 – A separate more detailed proposal about taxes was released but will repeat here: reduce taxes for PNG taxpayers, remove all taxes on retirement and retrenchment payouts, review all tax holidays to giant multinationals and grant subsidies for PNG owned companies. Prepare a list of PNG only businesses and force an improvement in standards and enforce and administrate these.
6 – Prosecute all those implicated in ALL inquiries. A great number of our problems and the people that cause these problems would disappear if those implicated were simply placed in jail. All their ill-gotten assets could be seized via the Proceeds of Crime Bill and used to fund serious investigations into fraud.

7 – Revamp Police Force by firstly implementing the 61 recommendations from the 2004 Police review report and build a credible force with strong discipline, value, honour and integrity earning the respect of our people. Even if we have to start from scratch and bring in foreign experts to rebuild our Police it will be WORTH it. Security costs and law and order situations are a major component of our budget

8 – Revamp Public Service and modernize – for a start, remove the ridiculous K7 per fortnight housing allowance and pay public servants with reasonable wages and benefits; have all of them – tea boy to head of department – on performance based contracts

9 – Increase minimum wages for all PNG workers and the trade-off would be improved security (see no. 7); provide incentives for companies investing in PNG downstream processing and manufacturing

10 – Review the ridiculous deals with; Interoil, Eda Ranu and Hanjung Power Supply. These arrangements are all costing PNG HUGE volumes of revenue and charging the highest rates in the pacific for the worst services

11 – Build an army of real credibility to patrol our waters and land border, bomb any ship – ANY SHIP illegally fishing in our waters and SEIZE any property and assets used by the TRANSNATIONAL CRIMINALS and convert to state use for funding Defence and National Security related activities

12 - Take the matter of West Papua’s Independence to the UN and present to UN’s Council and DEMAND that they rectify the mess they made in 1965 by illegally handing over West Papua to INDONESIA

13 –Take BACK ALL THE LAND ILLEGALLY OBTAINED by the state, business and by individuals.

Above are just some of the many serious national and provincial matters which Governor Juffa on behalf of the people has bought to the governments’ attention to address.
It is very evident that PNC refuses to take any criticism of their government, if they can’t handle critiques and simply “remove & sack” any opposing MP in parliament how are they expected to improve the countries affairs?

As quoted by past UK PM and legend Winston Churchill, “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things”.

Research fellow at NRI Andrew Mako wrote “PNG politics was labeled unstable for many years, but today we have the opposite problem: too much stability and of the wrong kind.”
It’s blatantly obvious that PNC can afford to dictate on its own terms. How long PNC holds on to this power and how long we as a nation allow them the power to dictate as they please is a question we all need to ask and address as a nation.

Governor Juffa will continue to represent the people and speak up on all issues of national concern.
Now being in Opposition we can expect the best is yet to come from PMC’s party leader & Oro Governor Gary Juffa.

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