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GROWING PAINS - PNG STILL IN PUBERTY

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  by YAKAN LEPAKALI It was shocking, shocking in a sense of embarrassment to read in the Post Courier (16/07/2015) the revelation of disparity that is evident in the city of Port Moresby. An athlete, after the games, went strolling to the outskirts of the city only to envisage people in settlements worse off than people in settlements in Fiji. Another commented, people have an attitude issue and generally dirty.  I don’t want to buy into the comment on people being generally dirty but on the notion of attitude and poverty, this is a really check. Such observation must be considered as constructive criticism to take an informed approach alleviating the status quo rather than dwelling on the negativity. Adding to the despair, upon arrival of the athletes at Jacksons international airport, waiting buses ferried the athletes away to the gaming village but disgraceful to watch luggage loaded onto open-back trucks exposed. Luggage for the athletes should have been transported in an en

CURTAIN BROTHERS’ UNJUST ENRICHMENT AT THE EXPENSE OF TAXPAYERS OF PNG

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by GREG WAIYAP The XV Pacific Games celebrations are over and now we have to get back to business. Among the debriefing, a reconciliation of public funds spent on the various infrastructures will undoubtedly be carried out in due course. Though many unlearned Papua New Guineans naively celebrated the scenic modern infrastructures, the thinking ones held back their emotions as they rationalise the net benefit gained for the overly priced two weeks event.   It is open secret that many of the companies involved in the construction of the Pacific Games facilities doubled, tripled or even quadrupled the price of those projects. Variations were approved in millions of kina. Whilst many facilitates were completed just before the games, one company that has let Papua New Guineans down big time is Curtain Brothers, owned by Townsville Based businessman Sir Mick Curtain. This company was contracted to construct the Sir Hubert Murray Stadium at Konedobu. At some stage of the project, Curtain Br

Highroads past PNG Foreign Policy Making

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Photo Credit: MESSER SMITH by STELLA PAULUS As we debate the reasons for the riot in Madang, let us not stray from the bigger picture of why it happened in the first place. In order to do so we have to look at our history.  Whilst Papua New Guinea was still 30 years into celebrating its freedom from the terrorism of colonialism, it was soon to learn that Australia was not going to let go of the reigns that easily. December 2003, Australia forces PNG into agreeing for the installation of the Australian Government’s Enhanced Cooperation Program (ECP) in the country. If not the Australian Government would pull the plug on the annual aid payment through what is known as AUSAID. The program enabled the direct control of PNG’s justice, economic and policing policies under which the Australian Federal Police (AFP) was introduced into the country.  However, on May 13 2005, a Somare-backed court ruling found that the protection against the law enjoyed by most Australian Federal P

TIME TO REVIEW OUR OIL,GAS AND MINING ACT

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by CHARLES KERUA Background I am prompted to write this after reading an article on the Australia’s Financial Review on a court battle between Oil Search Ltd & Inter Oil Ltd over the development rights (or pre-emptive rights) of the Elk-Antelope oil fields in the Gulf Province; a ruling which is expected to be handed down this March 2015 in London, UK. Many intelligent people will agree that our State & its people have “thrown away” so much of our natural resources so cheaply in the name of foreign investment and foreign capital injection. (Let us keep our discussion within the mineral & petroleum sector, and leave for a while other equally important sectors like forestry and fisheries). Proponents of foreign direct investments (FDIs) in our extractive industry have meticulously “seasoned” the spin offs, or so called “economic benefits”, of FDIs such as job creation, substantial foreign reserve base/cover, and tax revenue as a rosy cover to lure the State & its p

TAMING THE BEAST

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by PAUL AMATIO   A wild beast from the jungle will always remain that – a wild beast. No matter how many years are put into taming it. Even if from birth, the beast is domesticated and trained by humans to recognise and conform to acceptable standards of behaviour, that beast will always remain wild and “uncivilised” at heart. And it is to be approached with caution at all times. Are we humans any different? Or are we just putting on a façade and take off the mask to reveal the true beast within? A lion brought up in a household as a household pet for 5 years and later released into the wild had no trouble whatsoever joining a pride and integrating into the lion society. Although he recognised his former keepers and invited his wives to come say hello, in the end he remained a lion. A crocodile kept as a household pet for 15 years turned on its keepers and attacked them. A boa constrictor turned on its keepers after 10 years of being “domesticated”. Other “pets” like tigers and leop

Amazing Games Opening Draws Criticism

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PNG NEWS Tania Nugent is credited with starting popular Papua New Guinean children’s television program Kids Kona. She was a television presenter of Australian TV program ‘Nexus’ for many years before becoming the Managing Director of Makoda Productions Ltd, a PNG registered company incorporated on the 4th of July 2014 which has a total of 2 shareholders - one of whom is listed as Australian, and has 5 directors – two of whom are listed as Australian. Over the last one week, Tania Nugent has personally received a lot of praise and credit for the production of the Opening Ceremony at the Fifteenth South Pacific Games. However, the Opening Ceremony which Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, personally described as the “most amazing spectacular opening ceremony” also received wide spread criticism - primarily due to the alteration of the National Anthem which Pastor Joseph Walters and also Hon. Tobias Kulang member of parliament for Kundiawa-Gembogl criticised in an article pub

A GOVERNMENT OF LIES AND DECEPTIONS NOW PROVIDES A NEW PUZZLE

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GARRY MANUA APPRECIATE THE REFUGEES" ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN The day Peter O'Neill started soliciting church support for him taking over as Minister of Gaming so that he could "reduce the number of pokies in PNG" - and then used his power so that he and his cronies Melides and Cragnolini could take over the pokies industry and insure that pokies money would flow into their pockets - that was the moment we knew that we had an exceptionally devious Prime Minister who was likely to run an exceptionally devious government full of lies, tricks and deceptions.  We weren't wrong with that prediction. We're told we need infrastructure, which we do. What we didn't know is that the big push to get billions in foreign loans to build infrastructure was also the open gateway to kick back literally tens of millions of kina into corrupt private pockets. We were told that former DPM, and totally corrupt Chris Haiveta was appointed as new High Comm