PETTY POLITICS THAT MAY DESTROY UNITECH
NIUGINI OUTLOOK
Soon after the tragic death of Graham Romanong at Unitech, his bereaved father, when contacted by the press, demanded only that Peter O'Neill and Don Polye show up at the funeral because he held them complicit in the situation at the PNG universities having gotten totally out of hand, leading to the tribal war that resulted in the murder of his son.
It didn't take long for the demands to blow up like a balloon only a few days later. To a great extent, especially with the money demand, this is a logical progression that happens with an entire tribe has their say on what the compensation should be. In most cases however, the family still has the final say on the compensation amount.
Thus comes the question: Why didn't the Romanong family, whole father at least is well educated and westernised, put the brakes on the demand for such premature actions as the sacking of VC Chancellor Schram and Lae Metro Police Commander Anthony Wagambie? Who was whispering in his ear that these two needed to be sacked? Mr Romanong, as a former provincial administrator surely understood and appreciated the need to investigate and gather evidence first, draw conclusions from that evidence, and then take action Mr Romanong is not part of the evidence gathering team of the Lae Police and of Unitech and neither has even completed the evidence gathering process.
ENTER THE WHISPERING BANDICOOTS
As an aside, there apparently are 2 separate investigations going on. One deals with the Queen's Birthday tribal squirmish where SHP students, mysteriously well armed, lashed out at other students in a forum audience, resulting in the Engans taking the lead in a counterattack). This investigation is being carried out by Unitech. The other investigation is into the Saturday night of terror, during which Graham Romanong was murdered.
We believe that there have been a number of little whispers into the Romanong Family's ears, and that these little bandicoots also jumped over to Francis Awesa and did the same whispering.
We believe that this is a politicisation of the entire tragedy, exactly what the Romanong family was supposedly appalled by, but now has been roped into.
WHY PETER O'NEILL WOULD APPROVE OF THE POLITICAL MANIPULATIONS OF THE WHISPERING BANDICOOTS
Sources and articles previously published in PNG Blogs indicate that the O'Neill government has always considered Unitech VC Albert Schram an opponent to be gotten rid of. The process started when OHE Minister David Arore assisted in getting Schram blacklisted so that he could not return to PNG from an overseas trip. Once Schram was in exile, the PM visited the Unitech campus AND had a chat with the Acting VC John Pumwa. At that time, O'Neill promised Pumwa the VC's job as he didn't want a curious expat going through Unitech finances and figured that Pumwa wouldn't bother.
Further readings into PNG Blogs articles and recontacting the original sources of those articles reveal that O'Neill assured Pumwa that the Sevua Investigation being put together at the request of ousted Chancellor Philip Stagg and Pro-Chancellor Ralph Saulep (both old buddies of O'Neill) would provide all the information needed to terminate Schram.
What O'Neill didn't count on was the students' clamour to bring Schram back to Unitech. He also was caught with his pants down on Saulep's flawed Terms of Reference that Judge Sevua used to expand the inquiry to becoming a broader, far more objective investigation than a Schram witch hunt. Finally there was the brave stance for justice and fairness that the new Chancellor, Sir Nagora Bogan, brought to the newly composed Unitech Council. The Council supported Schram, the Sevua report supported Schram, and the students supported Schram. The PM, who had been saying that Schram was nothing special and could be replaced to the media, was pressured into a humiliating about face where he had to say that he had nothing against Schram coming back and reclaiming the VC's position.
Peter O'Neill wants Albert Schram out as purely a political vendetta, and the status and reputation of Unitech be damned.
O'Neill and Gari Baki still consider Anthony Wagambie too honest a police superintendent for their liking and one, they believe, would be prone to allowing more Lae student awareness activities and possibly even citizen protests going into the 2017 election that could end up embarrassing the Prime Minister and possibly costing him the election. That former O'Neill groupie Loujaya Kouza now hates the PM after belatedly realising that he was a deceiver and a liar, and that Kelly Naru is no fan of O'Neill's either, adds to the uncertainty of Lae.
On top of this is the Prime Mininster's Chief of Staff, George Bopi who looks to former Unitech corrupt VC Misty Baloiloi as almost a father figure. Bopi would love to see Schram deported and Schram's professional partner, Chancellor Bogan, also given the boot.
It all adds up to exactly what Francis Awesa has said twice over the past week, and the Romanong family & tribal wantoks are also demanding : Out with Schram and Out with Wagambie.
WHO ARE THE WHISPERING BANDICOOTS THAT ARE SUCCEEDING IN POLITICISING THE PROCESS?
Obviously the most direct source of information about what happened during the night of terror at Unitech was Graham Romanong's 'brother', who later identified the 3 Engan suspects for Lae police on the PMVs leaving Lae for Enga.
SRC President David Kelma knew Graham Romanong anyway as a fellow Southern Highlander and may have known the Romanongs prior to Unitech. The tragedy of course brought them together, not only Kelma alone interacting with them, but other Southern Highlands students as well. All together, they would be the only ones who would have provided firsthand information about the night of terror not only to the Romanongs but also other tribal wantoks of the Romanongs.
The bizarre slowness of the pace of the Unitech boycott under David Kelma's leadership led to speculation nearly from Day 1 that he had been bought off by SHP politicians. Peter O'Neill certainly sees the political value (never mind the damage to society) of having Schram terminated and Wagambie sent back to New Britain and demoted to a lower position as Gari Baki had already actioned after Wagambie approved the Unitech student awareness activity in Lae City. Whether Kelma and SHP politicians have interacted at all about any of this is unknown. What is certain is that David Kelma has been on the coverup warpath nearly since the Unitech boycott began and especially wants all possible connections between SHP students and political bribery to get him and a small circle of student allies (mostly but not all SHP) to defang the boycott covered up. Just as importantly, he wants the SHP actions on the afternoon of 13 June, at the Queen's Birthday forum, covered up so as to transfer the full blame to the Engans. In that way, the SHP students look completely like victims. That probably was never an intent of Kelma's. All he wants to do is coverup his own personal culpability in the tragedy that befell Unitech.
KELMA COVERUP OF SHP STUDENT INVOLVEMENT IN THE 13 JUNE FORUM FIGHT INTENSIFIES
That Kelma is a liar was always suspected by his unconvincing explanations of why the Unitech boycott was so lacking in planning and student activities compared to what was going on at UPNG. When challenged specifically by students on the suspicions that Kelma had taken bribes to render the boycott ineffective, he was again unconvincing, and tried to silence Unitech students through intimidation from spreading these suspicions onto the internet (student informants from Unitech who contacted Niugini Outlook increased in number after Kelma's attempt to shut up discussion on the issue).
However the greatest confirmation that Kelma was a liar came after the 13 June forum fight and how quickly he tried to coverup the fact that instead of being a neutral SRC President trying to stop SHP and Engan students from fighting, he jumped right into the middle of the SHP students and joined the fight. We were informed by a Unitech staff member that in conversation with Kelma, he blamed the Engan students as solely responsible for the fight, despite the fact that eyewitness accounts pointed to the opposite finding.
We suspect that David Kelma is well involved in the embracing of the Sack Schram and Sack Wagambie campaigns by the Romanong family and other tribal members, demands that were broadcast twice throughout the country by David Awesa. We know that Kelma was present during the bashing of the Vice Chancellor's vehicle only a few days after the night of tragedy. Diverting attention from yet another SHP student involvement in destruction works in Kelma's favour to absolve a relatively group of SHP students from both the forum fight and the bashing of the VC's vehicle. As the truth of the forum fight came out, Kelma began targeting those in the Unitech administration who were privy to the facts and knew Kelma's involvement. Removing Schram and Wagambie quickly, before any investigation could be completed, would make the coverup complete.
GREED AND ESCAPING BLAME CREATE A UNIFIED FORCE FOR ROUTING VC SCHRAM?
Last week Niugini Outlook received information about a meeting of the Unitech faculty where an agenda item was inserted at the last minute for advocating the sacking of Albert Schram, again before any investigation had been completed on the matter. That Unitech academics would be as childish as Francis Awesa is surprising until one digs. We learnt that one of the prime instigators is a long time enemy of the VC and is prominently covered in what is known as the Sengi Report, an investigation of various Unitech corruptions prior to Schram coming on board. His name is Professor C Gonduan, an Architect alleged to have corruptly benefits from an overpriced dormitory project planned before Schram's arrival and later terminated.
Onr general statement received by PNG Blogs some time back from an informant on the goings on at Unitech was this: "as the VC becomes more effective in getting rid of corrupt or lazy staff, he creates more enemies. These enemies lurk around, some still living on campus, waiting for their chance to topple the VC. Should they win they will bring Unitech back to corruption as existed before Dr Shram's arrival"
If the political effort of Peter O'Neill, Francis Awesa, David Kelma, and other Southern Highlanders gains ground to depose Wagambie and Schram, expect the mentioned group of corrupt or lazy Unitech staff to join the movement hoping to either stop investigations of corruption against them or get back into well paid jobs where they can perform to the minimum without any threat of termination.
THE END OF UNITECH'S RECOVERY, FALLING BACK INTO A POLITICAL STUPOUR?
This is a very sad story for Unitech. If the current effort to bypass investigations in the hopes of creating a political rout against Wagambie and Schram succeed, PNG universities will have lost all hope in ever joining the rest of the world and being recognised as a professionally run institution. Unitech's graduates have a hard enough time finding jobs after they leave school. Going back to the way things were before Schram as looks likely to occur will condemn Unitech to being a failed university forever, with its students getting diploma and degree papers that are essentially worthless.
The tribal fighting alone creates the image for all of PNG as being a place where even university students run around acting like primitive cavemen. This reputation will be established irrespective of whether Engans or Southern Highlands students end up being blamed for the disaster at Unitech (more likely the blame will go to both sides).
Reading people's reactions on the many sites at the social media, VC Schram obviously has strong national support by the public. He also seems to enjoy majority support of Unitech students apart from the SHP students and probably the Engans too.
What the politicians and the blame shifters don't seem to understand is that being popular is of little value or interest in the environment of a university. For any university that enjoys a good reputation for quality, it is the competency of its administrators, teachers and staff that counts. Who is popular and who is not, ro who has the most allies is baby sense way of looking at how a university functions.
PNG will never get out of its reputation for being full of corruption, nepotism and childish politicing so long as people think it should be important whether Peter O'Neill likes or dislikes the VC, or what Francis Awesa thinkd, or SRC President David Kelma. Unitech leadership and managers should not be involved in political contests. The politicians should stay completely out of the picture.
If the politicians and baby sense students such as SRC Presidend David Kelma cannot understand the way universities must be run to have any credibility in today's world, PNG has indeed reached a hopeless state. Maybe all the PNG public universities should be shut down and abandoned and we all go back to growing kaukau and taro and forget about development.
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