PNGBLOGS

by PATRICK SIPENDI Consider the obvious facts.   The first fact is that David Kelma in the hot seat.  He is the SRC president of one of the 3 major boycotting universities against the Prime Minister.   Despite protest to the contrary (with no evidence provided) we have verified that he comes from Imbongu District in Southern Highlands, whose MP is Francis Awesa, a sometimes business partner of Peter O'Neill.   Kelma is young, inexperienced, easy to influence and probably easy to pressure.   David Kelma’s mother is from Pangia, Peter O’Neill’s district. Here’s another fact.  With all the bribery and thuggery already reported against UPNG and Unitech students, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY THAT DAVID KELMA HAS NOT BEEN APPROACHED AND PUT UNDER PRESSURE OR SECRET OFFER TO BREAK THE UNITECH BOYCOTT.  This is 100% certain.    The question is what kind of pressure has been applied to David Kelma?  To know that, it is worth a brief discussion on how Peter O'Neill's (and

NIUGINI OUTLOOK Personality worship anywhere leads nations to disaster. We carry our MPs on our shoulders as if they were some kind of Gods while simple minded people in other nations do the same thing for their leaders. You see quite the opposite attitude towards leaders in countries that enjoy low rates of corruption. At best, they treat their leaders like normal people, but periodically pull their leaders down from the clouds using ridicule, anger, even name calling. Even our most corrupt leaders in PNG don't have to put up with that although during the 2007 campaign, Michael Somare had stones thrown at him at one gathering by citizens fed up with his nonsense. Robert Mugabe enjoys a hero worship of sorts, some of which he cultivates by surrounding himself with loyal lackies who laughs when he laughs, snores when he snores, and looks bored when he looks bored. However, those in PNG who praise Mugabe aren't his lackies. Rather, they are well meaning people who make

by CYRIL GARE Robert Ganim has called on the Government especially the police to treat the current anti-government campaigns in the country led by university students as a “threat to national security” and called for an independent inquiry into the whole saga. Mr. Ganim who is also Chairman of the Parliamentary Referral Committee on Education (PRCE), said the fact that the students have now taken their issue out of the campus and into the vulnerable public in the provinces was a serious issue of concern which authorities must not down play and undermine. Mr. Ganim was reacting to last Thursday’s riot in Wabag town which left many innocent public injured and thousands of kina in damages to properties. He condemned the unauthorised public rally that led to the riot and called on the police to investigate and arrest those responsbile. Mr. Ganim said several people were injured from wild stone-throwing in town while several vehicles including PPC’s, Enga teachers college, Sopas nursi

MEKERE MORAUTA'S INDEPTH CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF THE PNG ECONOMY AND GOVERNMENT FINANCES MISMANAGEMENT:  None of the sound actions being proposed can possibly succeed as long as Peter O'Neill is Prime Minister, James Marape is Finance Minister, and Patrick Pruaitch is Treasury Minister. These lightweights are totally underwater now in trying to save the PNG economy and must be removed as rapidly as possible. 2016 Budget failure The 2016 Budget has failed as a result of lower economic growth, lower than budgeted commodity prices, a failure to secure the $US1 billion sovereign bond and the $US300 million International Finance Corporation loan, and failure to adjust immediately to cushion the effect of these changes Revenue is likely to be about K800 million lower than expected, and the financing shortfall is heading towards K1.3 billion, so there is a K2.1 billion hole in the Budget Delivery of essential services such as health, education, transport and productive infr

NIUGINI OUTLOOK We have been told that at least 5 current and past MPs today visited Unitech to convince the students of this or that. They included Luther Wenge, Bob Dadae, Ross Seymour, Garry Juffa, and Sam Basil. In a sense one would think this was a political effort to attract the students over to their side, but at least we can say that at long last Peter O'Neill's puppets had an effective counterbalance, allowing the students to hear all sides of the issue. It is through such information sharing, which Peter O'Neill has always been allergic too, that we come to know the truth as best as we can. Bob Dadae strongly took the Prime Minister's side, probably hoping for presents later on the way he used to defend Papa Somare's corruption. Bob gained some fame in 2007 during the Julian Moti scandal of the Somare Government, which pointed to Michael Somare himself as the main lawbreaker who let Moti, then a fugitive from Australian justice, to sneak into PNG on

NIUGINI OUTLOOK Some years back we got tired of Bernard Narakobi and voted him out of his Wewak seat after many terms serving PNG well. We got tired of Bart Philemon although he too served the nation well for many terms as representative of Lae. We booted out former PM Rabbie Namaliu from his Kokopo seat, presumably because he was so honest he was getting boring, and Moresby residents kicked Mekere Morauta out of office in 2007, probably because he wasn't handing out enough candy to intending voters. On the other hand, we embrace with loving words dozens of some of the most corrupt human beings possibly to inhabit the planet. We don't bother investigating them. We simply love them, maybe because they are wantoks, or maybe because they are a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. But most likely we love them because they spent stolen funds or money essentially borrowed from the devil to buy SP cartons for us, or they tell us how be

NIUGINI OUTLOOK We have a dilemma similar to what judges have when they are given a case which has no direct evidence, but a variety of indirect or circumstantial evidence. Like the judge, we have to do our best to connect the dots and determine what the overall trend seems to be in establishing the truth. The fact is that reporters face the same dilemma as judges and even good investigative reporters often can come up with bits and pieces of scattered information. They have to work it into an overall picture, and do the best they can to make that picture accurate. Everything is made more challenging when we try to construct a story based upon anonymous tips or inside sources. But that too is normal in the world of reporting. Knowing who the messenger is does make it easier to determine how credible the messages are, but the credibility of a piece of information whose messenger is unknown can still be judged, especially when we compare that information with other bits and pieces o

NIUGINI OUTLOOK  Today's incident in Wabag makes a lot of sense considering it was none other than Peter Ipatas himself who more than a week ago slinked into Lae, told Unitech students that he would be at the National Polytechnic University in Lae, and proceeded to distribute thousands of Peter O'Neill's newspaper advert propaganda reply to the student boycott. Ipatas also used this curious time to distribute school fee subsidies and scholarships, which of course makes no sense at all considering where the university administrations are in their school year. Ipatas is a willing briefcase carrier to Peter O'Neill and like the late Anderson Agiru, presides over the distribution of an immense amount of tax money generated by resource extraction from those provinces. Even in 2016, very little is seen on the ground as products of the cash cow Pogera Mine and the cash cow LNG and oil projects. Considering who he is, it makes all the sense in the world that he would not

NIUGINI OUTLOOK Many on the social media were fooled by UPNG Academic Senates' news release on Tuesday, thinking that the unthinkable had happened - that the Academic Senate had cancelled the school year, with all the fallout that would come from that. Let's start with what happens to n ext Year's incoming Year 1 students. Let this years repeat? If not, then exclude this year's Year 2, 3 and 4 students? Can't do that! Probably they would try to double up 2 year's worth of year 1 students which would be chaotic at best. That's why the Department of Higher Education is mortified by the prospects of the school year being cancelled. The school year wasn't cancelled yesterday. Neither was Semester 1 cancelled. It was formally suspended. Of course, it has been informally suspended for 3 weeks now, so why bother announcing this? The reason was to try and frighten the students and their parents into coming back to class. As usual, the Academic Senate and A

PNGNews This is the background brief outline provided by former interoil employees as the company face growing pressure from shareholders and PNGICC over announcement of Oil Search bid to buy out InterOil operation in Papua New Guinea, giving total monopoly over LNG production market in the country. Jobs: In 2013, InterOil had between 1,500 and 2,000 staff and contractors throughout Papua New Guinea. The current BOD and executive management changed the entire strategy of the company, and closed offices, sold assets, and sacked staff. Around 100 staff in Cairns Australia lost their jobs as the office was forced to close by executive decree. Then the layoffs started in PNG, whereby hundreds of PNG nationals lost jobs. Critical roles such as safety training and inspection were “right-sized”, actually these roles were simply reduced and out sourced to foreign contractors ( at rates 3 times PNG nationals) that simply didn’t have the PNG experience that is needed in roles like that.