PNGBLOGS

Speaking to the Sunday Chronicles, Treasurer Patrick Pruaitch made the following statements. 1. PNG will have budget deficits for next 5 years; 2. PNG govt borrowed up to K21.6 billion excessive borrowing; 3. Formal sector jobs have fallen since 2014; 4. K3 billion govt borrowing to buy Oil Search shares hidden in Kumul Holdings books; 5. Govt owned entities such as PNG Power, PNG Ports, Telikom, Air Niugini, NAC, Eda Ranu, etc owed millions by govt and struggling to exist even to pay their employees' salaries; 6. PNG Embassies in overseas whose staff are not paid their salaries for 10 months. As a result their children kicked out of schools and offices closed for non payment of rentals; 7. PNG LNG Landowners after 3 years of Spirit of Hela making shipment gas to Asian markets not even a toea is paid as a royalty to landowners; 8. Spending in extravagant projects built at highly inflated costs; 9. Employers reducing their staff level because foreign exchange crises; 10. In

by APELIS TOKIVA PETER O'NEILL HAS DEDICATED THE LAST 4 1/2 YEARS TO PARALYSING ANY DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT DESIGNED TO KEEP CHECKS ON ANY LEADER AMASSING TOO MUCH POWER, THEN ABUSING IT:  He has successfully paralysed the ability of the police, fraud squad, ombudsman commission, auditor general, etc to investigate white collar crime or leader abuse of power by strangling them financially and if necessary, shutting them down physically.  He has successfully strangled the court system using his old strategy which has worked so well for his NPF fraud troubles and others in the past. Mounting endless court challenges passes time to the point the public forgets all about the case. That's when Peter O'Neill (and Jimmy Maladina) can make a deal, through bribery or intimidation (whatever it takes) to end the court case in his favour.  He has successfully castrated Parliament until it has become an easy to manipulate puppet, usually successfully warding of

  by MICHAEL PASSINGAN Its not Rocket Science, Papua New Guineans should know that the country is crumbling. Bank of PNG Governor Loi Bakani’s explanation of the theft of K124 million in demonetised banknotes, and their illegal distribution across the country and on EBay, is pathetic. The theft is clearly an inside job and Bakani’s statement is an attempt to cover that fact up. It could only have been carried out with detailed knowledge of the bank’s practices for the destruction of notes that have been taken out of circulation. Even more alarming is that the scandal – yes, another one in the O’Neill Regime, one of the most corrupt governments in the world – comes at election time. It won’t be long before the money starts appearing in the Highlands as election bribes by PNC candidates and coalition cronies Some stories circulating in Highlands centres indicate that that is already happening. It’s an easy thing to do, as PNC’s crooked strategists surely know. Villagers in remot

by WALI DAVID In the first part of this article, I began to outline the strategy that almost guarantees PNG winning the 2017 elections in a landslide and puts the Prime Minister in position to remain in power for as long as he wants, even for life.   There are 4 different parts to this strategy.   In Part1, the necessity of focusing the 2017 campaign on rural open seats and forget about urban electorates was explained.   Following that, the need to politicize the Electoral Commission so that it came firmly under PNC control but remaining a government body was explained.    We will now turn to the 3 rd strategy of the grand plan that would allow the PNC to win the 2017 election in a landslide.   GRAND STRATEGY 3-  AT THE BEGINNING OF ELECTION YEAR, BEGIN TRANSFER OF LARGE SUMS OF PUBLIC MONEY TO RURAL DISTRICTS This part of the strategy involves putting together a massive warchest to fund candidates.   Specfiically, it involves acquiring and sending large sums of p

by MICHAEL.J PASSINGAN Last month Prime Minister Peter O’Neill publicly stated that the nation’s annual GDP growth rate is 9.2 percent. He said Papua New Guinea’s growth rate is the envy of many world economies – “9.2% is miles better  than the global average, which is about 3 percent or less”. That was untrue when he said it, and the Prime Minister knew it to be untrue. The growth rate for the year, according to the 2016 Budget, was 4.2 percent. But in fact PNG’s GDP growth rate at the time Mr O’Neill lied to the people was less than 4.2 percent. Confirmation of that comes with the release yesterday of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook. That authoritative document estimates PNG’s annual growth rate this year is 3.1%. This is very bad news for Papua New Guineans. It puts PNG’s GDP growth amongst the lowest in the world. But the accompanying graph shows that the situation is even worse than that. Under the corrupt, reckless and wasteful PNC Regime of Peter O’Neill, national

by PAUL REINBARA Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and Health Minister Michael Malabag are allowing Papua New Guineans to die because of their refusal to fund the national fight against tuberculosis. A secret letter from O’Neill to Malabag shows that the Prime Minister would rather spend money on wasteful showpieces and events than preventing TB and saving lives. Cabinet approved urgent tuberculosis spending of K20 million more than six months ago, but the Prime Minister is refusing to release the funds. Instead, he has directed Malabag to commit K8 million of existing funds. But this is only for Daru in Western Province – and TB experts say it is nowhere near enough to tackle the TB crisis there. Many more Western Province people will die because of  the refusal of O’Neill and Malabag to approve new funds for the nationwide TB campaign. There is also a TB crisis in NCD and Gulf and Central Provinces. But O’Neill and Malabag have decided that people there can die, too.

by SAM KOIM Is Political stability the main driver of investor confidence? I have been led, and I believe many are, to believe that political stability is needed to give investor confidence and growing the economy. This misconception of synonymising political stability to economic stability has it’s seldom appearances in public grandstanding and political discourses. This is what I've discovered in debunking this illusion. Political stability talks about the length of time a government is in power. In terms of investor confidence, it means the investors can count on the current (negotiating) government for durability and certainty of the current position. Yes, in countries and time periods with a high propensity of government collapse (political instability), growth is significantly lower than otherwise but is it really political instability that really caused decline in growth? Economists may articulate it more clearly than I, but I gather that economic s

by BRYAN KRAMER The news of O'Neill Government's decision to adjourn Parliament to March 2016 brought a smile to my face. A decision that was very much anticipated and welcomed. As predicted Peter O'Neill would do so to avoid facing the motion of vote of no confidence. It's my view it is typical of O'Neill to act like a coward demonstrating weak leadership by manipulating democratic processes to serve his own interest. Evidence of this fact was when Fraud squad members served him a warrant of arrest in June 2014. They kindly asked him to accompany them to be interviewed, he instead fled like a common criminal to hide out in Parliament House. Section 155 (Parliamentary Privileges) Constitution states Members of the Parliament are free from arrest for civil debt during meetings of the Parliament and during the period commencing three days before, and ending three days after. At the time Parliament was not even in session but nonetheless it didn't stop O

by BRYAN KRAMER This Part 2 of a two part series providing an insight into the looming vote of no confidence (VNC) against Peter O'Neill planned by the Opposition during the current session of Parliament. Part 1 covered the constitutional and procedural process that must be followed before Parliament may consider a VNC. To recap, the Constitution (section 145) stipulates that a motion of VNC may be proposed by any member of Parliament; however it must name the next Prime Minister, be signed by no less than 12 MPs, and give no less than one week’s notice in accordance with the standing orders of Parliament. Standing Orders stipulate the notice of VNC must be delivered to the Speaker of Parliament and tabled before Private Business Committee on a Wednesday to determine the motion is of national importance. It must then be delivered to Clerk of Parliament to be listed on the Notice Paper on a Thursday sitting (Private Business Day). This article will discuss ho

by BRYAN KRAMER A hot political issue right now is the looming vote of no confidence against the O'Neill Government. It's an issue I have been tracking for some time and carried out a degree of research into. So will the Opposition succeed? Well it may not succeed in changing the Government but it may initiate a course of action that just succeed in removing Peter O'Neill as the head of the Government. On October 12, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare dropped a political bombshell announcing he had tendered his resignation from the National Alliance Party. It was reported Somare was concerned about how the economy was being mismanaged. He could not remain in the Party that supported the O'Neill Government and what he termed as the habitual illegal and negligent actions of Peter O'Neill as the Prime Minister. Somare's decision fuelled speculations that a vote of no confidence against O'Neill was imminent. Peter O'Neill was quick to res