PNGBLOGS

Maximising the full potential of the Extractive Industries Transparency initiative By JONATHAN PELI Papua New Guinea is endowed with huge reserves of oil, gas, gold, copper and other solid minerals. Over 78% of its exports derive from these natural resources. In an effort to improve transparency and governance of the country’s mining, oil and gas sectors, in 2013 the government of Papua New Guinea applied to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global coalition of governments, companies and civil society working together to improve openness and accountable management of revenues from natural resources. Signing up to EITI was a condition of the Australian government’s support for the PNG Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Project worth AUD$30-50m in aid plus a AUD$500M loan through the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation. On the 19 March 2014 the board of the EITI approved Papua New Guinea’s application for EITI candidate status. The experience of oth

By FRANK MALILONG - SUN STAR NEWSPAPER, CEBU ONE early morning in the first week of June, last year, TV reporter Jinky Bargio chanced upon a group of rowdy foreigners near the old Rustan’s in Gen. Maxilom Avenue. When she saw the men throw bottles onto the street, stop passing vehicles and harass the drivers, Jinky knew she had a good story and got out of their vehicle. Soon they were recording the commotion. When they saw what Jinky and her crew were doing, the men took umbrage and attempted to confiscate the camera. Fortunately, the police arrived just in time to avert a confrontation between the TV crew and the foreigners who were later identified as Papua New Guineans. They were drunk. And apparently it was not their first brush with the law because when they arrived at the Fuente Police station, one of the policemen blurted, “it’s you again?”. In fact, there have been so many cases of Papua New Guineans, most of whom are enrolled in Cebu schools, being arrested for breach of the

By: FED UP STAFF MEMBER Bmobile Vodafone lack of management skills are in doubt again since the past and current redundant staffs have not been served with their STATEMENT OF EARNINGS as required under the IRC Policy and Regulations Act. To date most of these redundant staffs have been constantly communicating with the Bmobile Human Resource Department in relation to their entitlement payments of tax calculations and seem all efforts for assistances have fallen on deaf ears. The current employees have also confirmed they are yet to receive their STATEMENT OF EARNINGS from the Management as well. How can Bmobile Vodafone with a small team of nationals not provide such documents for their employees nor have such information on record? Can the Group CEO of Bmobile Vodafone, Sundar Ramamurthy and his Human Resource Advisor/Consultant Chris Taukuro explain the reasons for such a long delay for the past redundant staff as six (6) months is a long wait for any form of response from Bmobil

Sovereign Green Global is, according to its website , running a REDD+ conservation project, “located primarily in the Milne bay province of Papua New Guinea”. The project covers “approximately 125,000 hectares of rainforest”. But details of the project are scant and the information that is available rings plenty alarm bells. The REDD project in Milne Bay province is supposed to reduce emissions from deforestation by protecting the forests from logging and conversion for agriculture. It will do so, according to Sovereign Green Global, “by offering the farmers financial incentive and intact forests rather than income received from deforestation”. Sovereign Green Global does not explain how this will prevent logging or palm oil companies from clearing the forests. Clean Development Mechanism or REDD? The project is listed on the CDM Bazaar , a website run by the UN Environment Programme as “a global ‘virtual information exchange place'” about the Clean Development Me

By JASON WAUGLE It defies simple logic how an Israeli company so small and invisible in its own country could be creating everything from A to Z here in PNG, with its eye on running the national power grid and holding us hostage to pay whatever price they demand for electricity. Israeli’s LR Group is back in the news again.   Sometime in 2011 our shady Prime Minister found LR Group to be the perfect partner for PNG, even though its track record at setting up any project that sustains itself without their permanent and profitable involvement is questionable and they seem very secretive, even to their employees on what they’re really up to (see http://www.pngblogs.com/2014/06/png-israeli-business-connections.html ). Late last year, shady Peter had LR Group do a simple middleman business deal, sourcing 2 generators for PNG that initially were said to be coming from Israel’s Israel Electric Corp (IEC) as used equipment, but then strangely arrived from the USA from General Electric, which

By Frank Taso Have you ever noticed that our pollies constantly whimper that they’re being defamed on the social media, yet will hardly ever reply to any allegations made against them on the social media?     Actually, Powes Parkop once tried it on PNGBlogs by posting an article defending himself.  He immediately vanished when followup questions were thrown at him that put him on the spot.   Questions like why does it cost so damn much money to build a road on government land on flat ground in Port Moresby.   Or why is is so damn impossible to post all tenders for infrastructure construction contracted by NCDC directly on the NCDC web site for we taxpayers to see? Powes won’t answer such questions because he’s too busy worrying that he’ll look stupid before the eyes of the public over what appears about him on the internet.  Once again he has called for legal regulation of the social media, especially Facebook.  What Stupid Powes doesn’t ever seem to get into his

By DR JAMES NAIPAO Happy 39th Independence. Man has lived on this planet for 360 million years or so. 300 million years or so, man have become nocturnal mammals. After 65 million years ago, man came out of the closet of the darkness to explore the ends of the earth. From a nomadic lifestyle, agriculture paved the way for the birth of clans, tribes, ethnicity, great kingdoms and civilizations and attached to the biodiversity of environments where man set foot on. For control and normalcy, all forms of government were born. With time through centuries, million of lives were lost through wars, conflicts, territorial land grabbings, diseases, natural disasters and famines. Intellectual ability of man grew with the experiences of time. This brought peace and good order as well as the evolution of modernism. Today, global hunger and despair will absorb the minds of men and they will fight against each to claim presumably what is deservedly theirs, and poverty will drive that. PNG