PNGBLOGS

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 BRYAN KRAMER Post Courier ran a front page article, "Voter Rights Abused", which quoted Member for Ijiviatri, David Arore's claims that election petitions infringe on the rights of voters and called for an urgent amendment to the law. "It is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in the conduct of elections as per the Organic Law on General Elections," he said. "You talk about the rights of the candidates but what about the rights of the voters. Isn't that abusing and questioning their rights? They should also take the candidates to court for denying their rights to vote a leader of their choice." "..We need to change the laws and I will take it up before Parliament to have these laws amended so we do not have unnecessary courts of disputes and by-elections. Make them tighter so that laws are not abused for the convenience of a few people who want to disrupt service delivery and infringe on the rights of the people. We need to

by JACK NAIME Another independent international assessment of Papua New Guinea’s financial management has contradicted the spin and deception by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, Treasury Secretary Daire Vele and the mainstream media led by the Post-Courier. The report, Poor Financial Management in PNG: Can It Be Turned Around? Is available here: http://devpolicy.org/pngs-financial-management-can-it-be-turned-around-20160112/ . It was written by PFMConnect, a respected international consultancy specialising in developing country financial management. The report slams the O’Neill Government’s financial management and reinforces the criticism of other independent international observers who have exposed the corruption, incompetence and waste that is rife under Peter O’Neill and Daire Vele. Papua New Guinea ranks 21st out of the 24 assessments of Public Financial Management conducted by the IMF last year, according to the report. Most alarming is the fact that under Mr O’N

SOUTH PACIFIC POST We were inundated with telephone calls from our readers all day yesterday for news on the latest political developments in Waigani from our readers throughout the country. All we did was to inform them that the updates were still coming in and by the end of the day; we will have something solid for them. By the end of the day, we learnt that the Highlands Bloc of the National Alliance Party was meeting with the Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare, which culminated in a petition to the Grand Chief to rescind his decision to replace Don Pomb Polye with Sam Abal as the Deputy Prime Minister. Abal, the son of one of the Highlands region most respect Parliamentarians in the colonial era, was not present at this meeting, we were told. The Prime Minister is yet to respond to the petition, or if he did late last night after we went on to print it, we are not aware so it is safe to assume that Mr Abal, the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Immigration Minister is the new Deputy Prime

SOUTH PACIFIC POST We were inundated with telephone calls from our readers all day yesterday for news on the latest political developments in Waigani from our readers throughout the country. All we did was to inform them that the updates were still coming in and by the end of the day; we will have something solid for them. By the end of the day, we learnt that the Highlands Bloc of the National Alliance Party was meeting with the Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare, which culminated in a petition to the Grand Chief to rescind his decision to replace Don Pomb Polye with Sam Abal as the Deputy Prime Minister. Abal, the son of one of the Highlands region most respect Parliamentarians in the colonial era, was not present at this meeting, we were told. The Prime Minister is yet to respond to the petition, or if he did late last night after we went on to print it, we are not aware so it is safe to assume that Mr Abal, the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Immigration Minister is the new Deputy