Money Starved PNG Government Still Has Plenty of Money To Burn Publishing Its Expensive Propaganda Rag

by SALMA KULI JACOB

There is one thing we can be very grateful to the UPNG students for when they burnt thousands of Post Couriers and National newspapers last week.   They probably didn’t realize it but they simultaneously burnt a colourful and very expensive insert called PNG Now.   
PNG Now is the official government propaganda piece.   It is published by Isaac Lupari.  In case you don’t know one of Mr Lupari’s highest accomplishments, he was charged by the Finance Department Commission of Inquiry with embezzling K3.7 million along with Guguna Garo, of Paul Paraka lawyers.  The solicitor general at the time, Zachary Gelu, settled the bill for his kickback of the funds.  An additional K800,000 was also paid to Paul Paraka lawyers for their role in facilitating the fraud.  All of this was yours and my tax money.   Read the article:  
https://pngexposed.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/isaac-lupari-aided-by-gelu-and-paraka-lawyers-stole-k3-7-million/
That finding has been quietly ignored by the O’Neill government and Mr Lupari instead was appointed to be Peter O’Neill’s Chief of Staff and #1 right hand man.    A vain and conceited man who isn’t quite as smart as he thinks he is (but then again, he’s still not serving a prison sentence, we will give him credit for that), Lupari dabbles in various expensive activities, all funded by we taxpayers.  One of these is PNG Now, which Lupari is the publisher of.  We wonder if he makes a bunch more money in addition to his salary doing playing the publishers role?
PNG Now is full of government exaggerations and propaganda.  The publication excels in filtering through a PNG ocean of broken down or half built classrooms to find and write about one showcase example.  For all we know, that example may have been created especially for government propaganda purposes!  If you only read PNG News, you’d think every rural community in PNG has a brand new school, aid post, and district station buildings.   Lupari and his gang know that a diminishing percentage of urban dwellers have any contact with their village relatives anymore.  They never go bek lo ples, which means these city people have little idea what the realities are back home.  

The overall rural reality that you’ll find today in PNG is radically different from what you’ll see written up on PNG Now.   But that’s okay because this is a government propaganda rag whose goal is not to tell the truth as it stands, but manipulate the truth so that it makes a failed government look good.  
Just looking at the slick, colourful appearance of PNG Now, it is obvious that Mr Lupari spared no expense publishing it.  You can be guaranteed that the costs came from somewhere other than the stolen K3.7 million.     Fortunately, this past weekend thousands of Port Moresby newspaper buyers were spared such garbage reporting as the PNG Now inserts went up in flames at UPNG.   
Late last week as we witnessed the ashes of PNG Now rising with the flames at UPNG, we couldn’t help but pray that bucketloads of shame would rain down upon the 4 reporters and graphic designers who willingly participate in creating this disgusting publication.   Specifically we point to Daniel Korimbao, Aiva Tamate-Ore, Elijah D. Elijah, and Pius Eano.   Obviously none of them have any conscience for the people of this country suffering from the drastically cut back health care services to rural areas.   How much medicine could have been bought with the money used to publish PNG Now?   Isaac Lupari and his staff couldn’t care less so long as money keeps flowing into their pockets.  
There is also something to praise out of this sad story.    Despite PNG Now’s constant invitation for potential advertisers to contact them, NOT ONE PRIVATE BUSINESS has lowered themselves to support this publication with their advert monies.   Good for them!   That’s the good news.  The bad news is that without any advertising revenue from business, the costs of publishing PNG Now is obviously coming out of the currently devastated PNG government budget and our tax monies.   Lupari is hoping that we immediately become hypnotized by the colourful pictures of PNG Now and don’t bother to figure out the truth of this pathetic publication.  

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