PNGBLOGS

by MICHAEL JOSEPH PASSINGAN Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has just cost Papua New Guinea almost K1.5 billion because of his reckless, corrupt and unnecessary borrowings. The loss is on the refinancing of his illegal K3 billion UBS-Oil Search loan. The deal was done in secret in Sydney earlier this month to avoid having to reveal the massive loss that the Prime Minister, UBS and Oil Search have inflicted on the nation. Details of the deal were not revealed when Kumul Petroleum MD Wapu Sonk announced it over the weekend.  Mr O’Neill’s secret loss comes at a time when the Government is virtually bankrupt, unable to pay public servants and cutting spending on essential services such as health, education and power generation.  It will add to the record and illegal levels of debt already incurred by the Prime Minister. It will contribute to further worsening of the living standards of ordinary Papua New Guineans. The refinancing of the UBS-Oil Search loan is even worse tha

by JOHN KAUPA The current Minister for Foreign Affairs Rimbink Pato and the then Minister for Justice and Attorney General Kerenga Kua both conspired, or otherwise played the most dirtiest trick on the people of PNG when they paid themselves Millions ( over K8 million) of public funds. Today Kerenga Kua struts around putting on the robe of righteousness, seeking to fight corruption and publicly portraying himself as MR CLEAN on the public affairs of the nation, while his mate Pato plies the Australians with his silvery tongue. Well what do the facts speak of these men? The Fourth Category of payments (that Mr Wafai refers to in a Statement in his own Defence to the then Chief Secretary when he was suspended for making payments to Paul Paraka) are payments made by Finance Department out of the Attorney General or Justice Department Vote that are directed by Politics and Politicians. What work of equivalent value did Posman Kua Aisi Lawyers do by way of instructio

by JAMES MARAPE MP   Today I was informed of a circulation in FB and PNGBLOGS.COM website on latest Paraka Lawyers claim for money at Finance again for so call outstanding unpaid bills. Using this public forum may I confirm that this law firm unashamedly submits yet again another claim of K24.1million addressed to Finance Secretary. I was presented a copy of this claim and I feel this firm has lost its human and moral mind. For them to have the audacity to resubmit another claim after causing so much pain to some of us when in late October 2012 i instructed for State Solicitor to verify the Bills he submitted that time, yet he and few officers colluded to run four separate payments ( 14m im November 2012, 8m in Dec 2012, 6m in March 2013, 8m in May 2013). This firms appetite for money has caused many person loss of job, many family suffer, many of us fighting to clear ourselves because the firm's continuous scrupulous manner of bill submission. The taxation

by BRYAN KRAMER The short answer is, Yes. This is evident following the O'Neill Government’s delayed payments of the public servant salaries last Wednesday. I was first made aware of the issue a week earlier when an article was posted on social media explaining that public servants would not be paid on time due to cash-flow crisis and that the Government would blame it on the payroll system. A week later its what exactly transpired. Prime Minister Peter O'Neill, Secretary of Treasury Dairi Vele, and Secretary of Finance Dr Ken Ngangan all claimed the delay was due to the payroll system and nothing to do with being broke. Secretary of Treasury Vele issued a public statement, "Papua New Guinea is not broke!” He added that the economy was estimated to have grown by 9.9 per cent last year, driven by the ramp up of the full year of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) production. He further explained PNG’s economic growth was among the highest in the wor

by MICHAEL J PASSINGAN Recent attempts to transfer money from Papua New Guinea to Australia highlight growing concerns about money-laundering between the two countries. The Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, transferred K200 million to Australia late last year, and shortly afterwards one of his special lady friends, Ni Cragnolini, transferred K50 million. Some years before more than K100 million of public funds was washed through the Commonwealth Bank in Lismore, NSW, in a self-evidently illegal transaction. The Australian authorities refused to take action on this transfer when requested to do so by PNG. Indeed, the then Australian Treasurer, Wayne Swan, did not even bother to reply to requests for action. It is not known whether AUSTRAC, Australia’s money-laundering watchdog, stopped the latest transfers, or whether it even knew about them. It is not known whether the PNG and Australian banks involved reported the transactions as possibly suspicious. The chances are t

by STEVEN ANDRE The law firm at the centre of fraud allegations involving the Prime Minister and many other high-ranking people in PNG is ‘striking again’. In a letter dated 26 th  January 2016, Paul Paraka writes to Secretary for Finance, Dr Ken Ngangen, for some outstanding payments of K24.1 million. The bills comprised of a K12.940 million principal amount as purportedly confirmed by two National Court Orders in 2007 and interest component of K11.170 million. Mr Paraka claims that the bills were cleared by the Solicitor General in 2005 and two National Court orders subsequently confirmed it. He claims that the bills were not paid in the past because there were some Supreme Court cases pending and now that the cases had been concluded in July 2014, the Department of Finance is legally obliged to make these payments, failure to which would result in contempt of court proceedings. Mr Paraka refers to a letter by the Attorney General Ano Pala dated 6 th  July 2014 to then Co

Race to recovery: poorer and younger people will be the losers from a sustained budget crisis. by PAUL FLANAGAN The past year has been a year of poor public policy and misfortune for Papua New Guinea. The country ended the year in crisis management with cash shortages and budget cuts more severe than those in Greece's austerity package. Businesses are suffering from a lack of foreign exchange to pay for imports and sales are falling. Newspaper stories are increasingly of government cash shortages – funding not being paid to meet urgent medical programs such as drug resistant TB, teacher entitlements being deferred, superannuation contributions not being deposited, little being done to deal with the most severe drought since 1997. The international ratings agencies of Moody's and Standard and Poor'