PNGBLOGS

THE standard joke about the PNG jail system is that it has an “open-door policy”. Of course the joke is grounded in fact – the frightening number of jail breaks we have every year. It is as if you can walk in and walk out of jail as you please. Now we have a confidential report into the system which reveals a far more frightening facet of jails in our country. There is an escape almost daily from one of our jails throughout the country. It is so regular single person escapes are not reported. We pray this report, by a National Security Advisory Committee-sanctioned investigation team, is exaggerated because it would be frightening otherwise. More frightening is the assertion in the report that jails are now performing a reversed role to what they are intended to do. They have become recruiting and training ground for criminals. People who go in for minor offences or even the hundreds who spend long periods on remand have been “recruited” by hardened criminals doing time and turned into

THE standard joke about the PNG jail system is that it has an “open-door policy”. Of course the joke is grounded in fact – the frightening number of jail breaks we have every year. It is as if you can walk in and walk out of jail as you please. Now we have a confidential report into the system which reveals a far more frightening facet of jails in our country. There is an escape almost daily from one of our jails throughout the country. It is so regular single person escapes are not reported. We pray this report, by a National Security Advisory Committee-sanctioned investigation team, is exaggerated because it would be frightening otherwise. More frightening is the assertion in the report that jails are now performing a reversed role to what they are intended to do. They have become recruiting and training ground for criminals. People who go in for minor offences or even the hundreds who spend long periods on remand have been “recruited” by hardened criminals doing time and turned

Mr Speaker, when the O’Neill-Namah Government was elected on the floor of Parliament last year, we faced a tremendous task of reconstruction and reform after 10 years of waste, neglect and lost opportunity. I have spoken previously about the areas where this waste and neglect, and indeed corruption, was most prevalent and caused the most damage – in the State Owned Enterprises supervised by the Independent Public Business Corporation under the stewardship of the suspended Member for Angoram and his outrigger Mr Glen Blake who during that time claimed to be (and probably still is) the Somare family financial adviser. Since we were elected in August last year, much of the focus of my efforts, as Minister for State Enterprises, has been on finding out how big a mess the State Owned Enterprises are in; and where they have lost money, how that money was lost, where the money went to, and to try to get as much of that lost money back as we can. Mr Speaker, this is public money

Mr Speaker, when the O’Neill-Namah Government was elected on the floor of Parliament last year, we faced a tremendous task of reconstruction and reform after 10 years of waste, neglect and lost opportunity. I have spoken previously about the areas where this waste and neglect, and indeed corruption, was most prevalent and caused the most damage – in the State Owned Enterprises supervised by the Independent Public Business Corporation under the stewardship of the suspended Member for Angoram and his outrigger Mr Glen Blake who during that time claimed to be (and probably still is) the Somare family financial adviser. Since we were elected in August last year, much of the focus of my efforts, as Minister for State Enterprises, has been on finding out how big a mess the State Owned Enterprises are in; and where they have lost money, how that money was lost, where the money went to, and to try to get as much of that lost money back as we can. Mr Speaker, this is publ

In what can only be described as an added jab of malicious autocratic intent into the organs of democracy sustaining PNG, and a further parry in the ongoing political war between PNG’s executive and judiciary, the O’Namah government has once again, incredulously, taken one step further down a path of questionable return . In addition to the Judicial Conduct Act 2012 , O’Namah yesterday initiated and today progressed debate on a further piece of retrospective legislation titled the Supreme Court (Amendment) Bill 2012. The new law effectively restricts the powers of the Supreme Court by preventing the court from halting laws until after constitutional challenges are heard, and is deemed to have come into operation on December 9, 2011. Deputy Prime Minister Belden Namah has acknowledged that the new law is a response by the majority O’Namah Government to the Supreme Court’s staying of the controversial Judicial Conduct Act 2012 which provided a constitutional change to the act

In what can only be described as an added jab of malicious autocratic intent into the organs of democracy sustaining PNG, and a further parry in the ongoing political war between PNG’s executive and judiciary, the O’Namah government has once again, incredulously, taken one step further down a path of questionable return . In addition to the Judicial Conduct Act 2012 , O’Namah yesterday initiated and today progressed debate on a further piece of retrospective legislation titled the Supreme Court (Amendment) Bill 2012. The new law effectively restricts the powers of the Supreme Court by preventing the court from halting laws until after constitutional challenges are heard, and is deemed to have come into operation on December 9, 2011. Deputy Prime Minister Belden Namah has acknowledged that the new law is a response by the majority O’Namah Government to the Supreme Court’s staying of the controversial Judicial Conduct Act 2012 which provided a constitutional change to

There is growing evidence that Papua New Guinea's government may move to sack the electoral commissioner, removing a steadfast obstacle to parliament's vote to suspend the June election by six months. Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said on Friday the government appointment's committee was investigating a discrepancy in Andrew Trawen's reappointment as head of the electoral commission in 2010 by the government of Sir Michael Somare. He told parliament he had received legal advice that Mr Trawen's term as commissioner had been extended beyond the mandatory retirement age of 55 set for certain PNG civil servants without a compelling reason. "That reasoning was not provided at that meeting," Mr O'Neill said. "In fact, the meeting took less than three minutes, at least that's what one of the members who was there deliberated to us after that meeting yesterday with my good friend, the leader of the opposition and the other member