PNGBLOGS

by KERENGA KUA MP It is with great sadness and disappointment that we learned of the unfortunate recent court decision in Washington DC to lock out PNG. Embassy staff following three months of arrears in rental payments. The Parliamentary Leader and Member for Sinasina Yongomugl Mr Kerenga Kua said, "The O'Neill Government has spent a fortune during the campaign period telling Papua New Guinea, in a series of glossy advertisements, about how it has put PNG on the world stage. Hosting regional and global events has given us some recognition, but at the cost of so many other high priority areas like health and education. "Sadly, it is that very world stage that will witness us shame ourselves as we close foreign mission after foreign mission. So far this year we have failed to pay UN fees calling the failure an administrative glitch to avoid further humiliation. "High Commission and Embassy staff in Singapore, Beijing and Washington has had to

by PAUL FLANAGAN The Bank of PNG, the legislatively independent central bank for the country, lost significant credibility in its recent justification for why PNG has joined the bottom 2 per cent of countries in refusing to release the standard IMF Article IV report on countries (see here ).  It remains the only country in the East Asia and Pacific not to release an IMF Article IV report undertaken in 2016. BPNG provided six “critical issues” for refusing to release the report.  However, on closer examination, there was only one critical issue (fake GDP numbers used by the PNG Treasury).  And that should be the responsibility for the PNG Treasurer to release a statement on why the PNG was suppressing an independent assessment  by the IMF of the PNG economy. What is the O’Neill government trying to hide on its management of the PNG economy? International investors will easily through see this statement. PNG’s economic standing and credibility has received a severe down

by BRYAN KRAMER Prime Minister Peter O'Neill continues to issue misleading statements about the real state of the economy including the Government's true debt levels. On 3rd March 2016 O'Neill delivered a speech before Australian National Press Club in Canberra where he highlighted serious decline in world prices for our oil and gas and our minerals over the last 12 to 18 months has had a serious impact on our economy. "I do not want to sugar coat the pressures that we are facing with our people. We have an open dialogue on what we are doing to confront these challenges" he said. He went on to explain just a couple of years ago - "royalties and taxes from the resource sector totalled close to two billion Kina. Last year it amounted to just 260 million Kina - barely one eighth of the previous year’s revenues, and we expect the same in 2016" he said. He said as a result his Government was forced to revise his budget estimates downwards and liv

by FREEDOM HOUSE   The Political Rights rating declined from 3 to 4 due to Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s increasingly autocratic leadership style, including his disbanding of an anticorruption task force after he became subject of a corruption investigation. Overview:  In January 2014, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and other lawmakers faced allegations of wrongdoing involving $28 million in government fees paid to a private law firm. Taskforce Sweep, O’Neill’s special anticorruption investigation body, first concluded the allegations were unfounded, but later said new evidence supported an arrest warrant for O’Neill. Following this development, O’Neill declared Taskforce Sweep to be politically compromised and disbanded the group in June, putting the police in charge of the investigation. Acting Police Commissioner Geoffrey Vaki was arrested soon afterward by fraud investigators for interfering with the course of justice in relation to the case against O’Neil

CYRIL GARE A picture tells a lot of story. Likewise I present pictures here to tell about the state of students’ and lecturers’ housing facilities on campus at the University of Papua New Guinea. From the outset let me attest unreservedly that there is no malice or prejudice behind this publication except that the truth must be told.  It’s been over 20 years since I left UPNG and correctly student dormitories including all the Toa blocks (1-6), Talaigu, Poroman, Kapandu, and Niomoru as well as all the girls’ dormitories – Luavi house, Lasitawe and Dame Mary Kekedo building - have succumbed to depreciation and years of general wear and tear. At Toa 5 & 6, stocks of rubbish lie uncollected for weeks if not months, betelnut spittle everywhere. A room has stocks of empty soft drink cans piled up outside, a perfect attraction for Papuan black snakes.  At Fort banner where lecturers live, streets are filthy with rubbish and over grown trees and grass, used shopping plast

by JACK G WAUGLE Peter O'Neill and his out of control government have been running what has been a functional dictatorship.  There is no opposition and nearly all the MPs we elected proved to be docile puppets who spoke not a word of protest or concern, so focused were they on getting their DSIP and other development monies from the PM which in turn, was what they reckoned was their key to getting re-elected.  Hardly ever did nationalism come first or concern for PNG.  There were warnings after warnings about the out of control, loan fuelled infrastructure building for the Pacific games especially, a gigantic waste of money that all has to be paid back with interest.  Made all the more wasteful because of the built in kickbacks to Tom, Dick, Harry, and oftentimes the Chinese themselves.  So many people on the social media just didn't get it.  Maybe the warnings of pending doom all looked like a dreamland, but again and again the evidence was presented: 

OP/ED The 11th Mining and Petroleum Conference in Sydney, Australia kicked off yesterday. And in a packed room, PNG’s Oil Search Limited, a major partner in the LNG project, shocked the experts and government officials including ministers from both countries that it has spent a whopping K11.931 billion in oil benefits between 1992 and 2009. And that is nothing on the ground to show for this money, the company says. That is the verdict from oil industry supremo Dr Peter Botten of Oil Search Limited who said there was “no significant appropriate improvements in living standards” had occurred to Papua New Guineans from billions of kina received by landowners, provincial governments and the national government as resource benefits over the last 17 years. Today we are told some 200 people have died from cholera in Western Province. Apart from Cholera, TB, Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Cancer and many other diseases are killing our people. The National Department of Health has admitted that our health

OP/ED The 11th Mining and Petroleum Conference in Sydney, Australia kicked off yesterday. And in a packed room, PNG’s Oil Search Limited, a major partner in the LNG project, shocked the experts and government officials including ministers from both countries that it has spent a whopping K11.931 billion in oil benefits between 1992 and 2009. And that is nothing on the ground to show for this money, the company says. That is the verdict from oil industry supremo Dr Peter Botten of Oil Search Limited who said there was “no significant appropriate improvements in living standards” had occurred to Papua New Guineans from billions of kina received by landowners, provincial governments and the national government as resource benefits over the last 17 years. Today we are told some 200 people have died from cholera in Western Province. Apart from Cholera, TB, Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Cancer and many other diseases are killing our people. The National Department of Health has admitted that our heal