PNG SOEs teetering and are on the brink of crashing
By PAUL J. REINBARA The bankruptcy of PNG Power Ltd under Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and State Enterprises Minister Ben Micah should not surprise anybody. It has been shipwrecked by typical PNC political interference, corruption and greed. All the other SOEs are in the same boat for the same reasons. Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare was right to call on the Prime Minister this week to come clean on the collapse of the entire SOE system and the harm it will cause to the nation. Action needs to be undertaken immediately to try to save something from the Prime Minister’s wreckage, starting with police investigations into the activities of SOEs and Ombudsman Commission investigations into their directors and senior management. New States of Emergencies in other sectors are not the answer because all they do is allow more corruption and more mismanagement. When the illegal and unnecessary State of Emergency in the power sector was announced, it handed personal control of PPL ove