PNGBLOGS

By LUCAS KIAP The current states of affairs in this country whether good or bad according to your judgment are the reflections of the standard and quality of leadership we have had over the last 38 years of independence.   To understand the standard and quality of leadership in this country, let’s go back to how our leaders are elected to parliament, hence elections. In the Highlands where I come from, leaders are not elected democratically as it suppose to be through the ballot paper but usually elected through force, intimidations, bribery and cheating.   In the following I share my personal experiences of election bribery and cheating starting from the 1997 up until the 2012 general/national elections.   As far as I can recall, I had first witnessed bribery during the 1997 general elections. In that year I was doing Grade 9 at Fr. Peter Secondary (formerly known as Fatima Secondary) in the new Jiwaka Province (before it was part of the W.H.P). All students were asked to go home to v

By LUCAS KIAP The current states of affairs in this country whether good or bad according to your judgment are the reflections of the standard and quality of leadership we have had over the last 38 years of independence.   To understand the standard and quality of leadership in this country, let’s go back to how our leaders are elected to parliament, hence elections. In the Highlands where I come from, leaders are not elected democratically as it suppose to be through the ballot paper but usually elected through force, intimidations, bribery and cheating.   In the following I share my personal experiences of election bribery and cheating starting from the 1997 up until the 2012 general/national elections.   As far as I can recall, I had first witnessed bribery during the 1997 general elections. In that year I was doing Grade 9 at Fr. Peter Secondary (formerly known as Fatima Secondary) in the new Jiwaka Province (before it was part of the W.H.P). All students were asked

AT a time of steady economic growth and the promise of even greater expansion spurred by multi-billion kina resource projects, it can become easy to overlook the essential nuts and bolts that keep the economy humming. With the promise of big money coming in, it can become easy to overspend, borrow heavily against future revenue or loosen fiscal and monetary policies too much. That is why we welcome Treasurer Don Polye’s pledge to maintain macroeconomic stability through sound fiscal and monetary policies. Political stability must go hand in hand with good macro- and micro-economic policies to attract and sustain economic growth. PNG’s own immediate past is a solid example of just how this can be done, along with a pinch of good luck to do with a period of good world prices for a good number of PNG’s export commodities. The seven years of solid economic growth between 2002 and 2008 can be attributed to the fact that the Somare government served an unprecedented five-year term and then m

AT a time of steady economic growth and the promise of even greater expansion spurred by multi-billion kina resource projects, it can become easy to overlook the essential nuts and bolts that keep the economy humming. With the promise of big money coming in, it can become easy to overspend, borrow heavily against future revenue or loosen fiscal and monetary policies too much. That is why we welcome Treasurer Don Polye’s pledge to maintain macroeconomic stability through sound fiscal and monetary policies. Political stability must go hand in hand with good macro- and micro-economic policies to attract and sustain economic growth. PNG’s own immediate past is a solid example of just how this can be done, along with a pinch of good luck to do with a period of good world prices for a good number of PNG’s export commodities. The seven years of solid economic growth between 2002 and 2008 can be attributed to the fact that the Somare government served an unprecedented five-year ter

By: JOHN KERENGA GUGL It is not fair and just for small people put to death for robbing whatever amount even K50 000.00 or less while white collar criminals (big people) stealing five million Kina and above can escape the death penalty. These Laws are totally harsh and unfair to the small people. Reality in monetary values, it is always the politicians and senior bureaucrats who steal or corrupt millions of Kina and can affort to make laws to walk away from death penalty while small people will face it. As a nation we have to identify the real causes of the problems why someone resorts to rape? Why politicians and bureaucrats decided to corrupt? Why a poor guy decided to rob? Why a humble citizen decided to murder? Why Public Servants decided to steal people’s money? The answer boils down to one common denominator is the demand of Money. Since death penalty is a law and money seems to be the real cause of evil, the Government by now should be responsible for its own laws by strategizin

By: JOHN KERENGA GUGL It is not fair and just for small people put to death for robbing whatever amount even K50 000.00 or less while white collar criminals (big people) stealing five million Kina and above can escape the death penalty. These Laws are totally harsh and unfair to the small people. Reality in monetary values, it is always the politicians and senior bureaucrats who steal or corrupt millions of Kina and can affort to make laws to walk away from death penalty while small people will face it. As a nation we have to identify the real causes of the problems why someone resorts to rape? Why politicians and bureaucrats decided to corrupt? Why a poor guy decided to rob? Why a humble citizen decided to murder? Why Public Servants decided to steal people’s money? The answer boils down to one common denominator is the demand of Money. Since death penalty is a law and money seems to be the real cause of evil, the Government by now should be responsible for its own laws by str

By LUCAS KIAP                        My faith and hope about the Task Force Team to fight corruption has diminished after I saw the headline of the front page of Post Courier this morning (Friday, May 31, 2013), which read, “Wartoto nabbed”. The Chairman of the Task Force Sweep Team, according to this paper (Post Courier), said and I quote, “As a matter of Law, Mr Wartoto remains innocent until proven otherwise by a court of law”. He also said and I quote again, “The intentions of the government may have been genuine but greed, lack of management and monitoring, parking funds in authorities/agencies that lacked capacity to managed them and political patronage had resulted in millions of Kina being stolen and wasted”. We are forced to believe and have faith in our laws which had never been used successfully to prosecute and put behind bars white collar criminals. If there are such laws exist to prosecute white-collar criminals, then the people of Papua New Guinea no longer have faith in