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SO ARORE CLAIMS VOTER RIGHTS ABUSED?

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by BRYAN KRAMER Post Courier ran a front page article, "Voter Rights Abused", which quoted Member for Ijiviatri, David Arore's claims that election petitions infringe on the rights of voters and called for an urgent amendment to the law. "It is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in the conduct of elections as per the Organic Law on General Elections," he said. "You talk about the rights of the candidates but what about the rights of the voters. Isn't that abusing and questioning their rights? They should also take the candidates to court for denying their rights to vote a leader of their choice." "..We need to change the laws and I will take it up before Parliament to have these laws amended so we do not have unnecessary courts of disputes and by-elections. Make them tighter so that laws are not abused for the convenience of a few people who want to disrupt service delivery and infringe on the rights of the people. We need to

POLITICAL INTERFERENCE SEES CONTRACT OF NEW COURT HOUSE TO PM'S "WIFE" COMPANY

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PNGBLOGS The awarding of contract of the construction of the new Supreme and National Court Complex in Waigani worth K430 million is being heavily politicised and the awarding of the contract by NEC for unknown reasons has been delayed for two months now. Although It has been budgeted in the 2016 budget and planned to be completed before the APEC Conference in Port Moresby in 2018. The awarding of the contract went through the the bureaucratic process by going through the Central Supply and Tenders Board before being submitted to the National Executive Council (NEC) it's recommendation. The NEC submission in awarding a contract of the construction of the Supreme and National Court complex in Waigani is based on Supply and Tender Boards submission while in turn is based on careful and professional technical and financial assessment. CSTB have shortlisted 3 very qualified and experienced bidders that we're recommended to NEC. And they are in preference from 1- 3; 1.China Rail

THE STORY BEHIND THE VEGETABLE IMPORT BAN

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by JAMES PERIAP Ban on Import should be the Last Act in the line of protecting local farmers. Firstly, there should be a policy on developing the agriculture sector. To this date, we do not know what is the agriculture policy and how far has that been implemented and where. Secondly, and consistent with the supposed policy, there should be a growth in the domestic supply with emphasis on quality to substitute the market currently taken by the imported vegetables. The majority of our people are subsistence farmers but not yet sustainable commercial farmers.  The only known commercial farmer is the Nine Mile Hydroponic farm operated by controversial Israeli company –LR Group. This company was involved in the controversial and illegal purchase of the two second hand generators for PNG Power Ltd from Israel that are now collecting dust and never being used. The generators were purchased at the cost of K144 million. The Prime Minister defended this illegal and fraudulent transaction. Alr

O'NEILL RACKS UP RECORD DEBT: K25 BILLION

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by BRYAN KRAMER Papua New Guinea's economy will become the central issue in 2016. The recent IMF Report highlighted that there has been a significant increase in overall public debt, which amounts to about 56 percent of GDP (K25 billion) once arrears to a superannuation fund and other liabilities are taken into account. This is the highest level of debt in PNG's history. Prior to Peter O'Neill taking office in 2011, the country's total debt reported in the Treasury Mid-Report was only K6.3 billion and foreign reserves were at K9.3 billion at end of December 2011. In a space of just four years, Peter O'Neill has almost quadrupled our debt to K25 Billion and depleted our foreign reserves to just $US1.8 Billion. O'Neill recently praised an IMF report for presenting a frank assessment of the economy. Both the Prime Minister and the Post Courier highlighted that the IMF report had commended the Government for achieving impressive economic growth in recent years

PM’S ILLEGAL UBS-OIL SEARCH SCAM COSTS PNG A BILLION KINA

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by MARK AMBANE Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s illegal and corrupt deal with UBS to buy 10 percent of Oil Search is now a full-scale disaster. It is threatening the viability of the 2016 Budget and could further undermine Government finances, which are already at crisis point. The State’s 150 million shares were bought in March 2014 for $8.20 each. That is a total $A1.2 billion, or about K3 billion at the exchange rate early that month. A few days later, on 14 March 2014, the Prime Minister boasted that the country had already made a profit on the shares of $A75 million (about K170 million). Today, the losses on the purchase are stupendous. Those 159 million shares were worth slightly less than $A5.70 today. That is a loss of $A400 million. At today’s exchange rate that is about K850 million. Peter O’Neill, Peter Botton of Oil Search and UBS have cost Papua New Guineans almost a billion kina. Worse still, the disastrous slide in the value of Oil

O'NIELL'S STICKY FINGERS AIM FOR PANGUNA

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by BRYAN KRAMER Yesterday (11/01/16) Post Courier published an article by Gorethy Kenneth headlined "O'Neill: Govt has no interest in Panguna" The report stated "Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has reiterated that the Government has no interest to own the Panguna Copper Mine on Bougainville." It went on to quote O'Neill stating; "There have been suggestions that the Government is keen to buy 53.38 per cent Rio Tinto’s shares in the Australia firm Bougainville Copper Limited. "The National Government is committed to improving the delivery of basic services to the people of Bougainville as a top most priority of our Government, the report said. "Recent decisions, including rebuilding the main roads including Kokopau to Arawa, and to Buin and the awarding of contracts, are clear examples of this commitment. "As I stated in Arawa and in Panguna, the National Government is not interested in talking about anything e

PUBLIC FINANCE MANAGEMENT DISASTER

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by JACK NAIME Another independent international assessment of Papua New Guinea’s financial management has contradicted the spin and deception by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, Treasury Secretary Daire Vele and the mainstream media led by the Post-Courier. The report, Poor Financial Management in PNG: Can It Be Turned Around? Is available here: http://devpolicy.org/pngs-financial-management-can-it-be-turned-around-20160112/ . It was written by PFMConnect, a respected international consultancy specialising in developing country financial management. The report slams the O’Neill Government’s financial management and reinforces the criticism of other independent international observers who have exposed the corruption, incompetence and waste that is rife under Peter O’Neill and Daire Vele. Papua New Guinea ranks 21st out of the 24 assessments of Public Financial Management conducted by the IMF last year, according to the report. Most alarming is the fact that under Mr O’N

Commonwealth report on 2012 election

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As Papua New Guinea heads into the 2017 elections, it is timely to read the report by the Commonwealth Observer Group on the 2012 national elections.  It gives citizens an idea of what to expect in 18 months ­ more massive corruption by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and PNC, and the Electoral Commission. The Group that visited PNG at the time slammed the conduct of the 2012 national elections, saying “serious concerns need to be addressed for the future.” The report confirms what all Papua New Guineans know – the 2012 election, like others before it, was rigged. The findings are in keeping with the PNC­sponsored corruption that that is destroying every part of society, not just the electoral process. They show that O’Neill and PNC are rapidly destroying Parliamentary Democracy and instituting a Mugabe­style dictatorship. It is likely, considering the details of the report and the recommendations that have not been acted upon, that the 2017 elections will be rigged by PNC and the Elect

BREAKING NEWS: NEC APPROVES TO REVERT TO FIRST-PAST-THE-POST VOTING SYSTEM FOR 2017 NATIONAL ELECTIONS

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by JACK PALME JOHNSON Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and his heavily corrupt National Executive Council have, on Wednesday 16th December, approved to abolish the Limited Preferential Voting (LPV) System and revert to the old system –First Past the Post. We do not know the reasoning behind this regressive Christmas gift to PNG by the O’Neill Government but well-placed sources confirm the NEC decision. This decision does not come as a surprise to Papua New Guinea, the land of bountiful tolerance and wilful ignorance. It shouldn’t be surprising at all because O’Neill Government has lost its popularity on all fronts. Economic Mismanagement, Grand Scale Corruption, Evasion, Deception, Lies, and Manipulation are among the outstanding hallmarks of PNC Party and O’Neill Administration. PM O’Neill himself has the NPF case, the Paraka Case, the UBS Leadership Tribunal and the PNG Power Generators case still hanging over him and yet continues to run this country down. Thanks to our entire

PETER O’NEILL’S ROLL OUT OF THE ILLEGAL K6 BILLION CHINESE EXIM BANK LOANS

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by BARRY PISIMI On or around September 2012, immediately after Peter O’Neill was installed as the Prime Minister, he (O’Neill) took a huge delegate to China, organised by his sidekick, Ni Cragnolini. It was openly reported that a loan of K6 billion was obtained from the Chinese Export-Import Bank (Exim Bank) to fund certain rehabilitation of ailing infrastructures. One would have thought that PNG Powers rundown and incompatible power generation and distribution equipment would be first priority. NO! The K6 Billion was never appropriated in the 2012 National Budget, nor was it captured in the subsequent budgets in 2013, 2014 and 2015. We really don’t know whether that loan was obtained and if so, did the money ever enter PNG? One of the mandatory conditions of Exim Bank loans is that a Chinese multi-national corporation, mostly State owned enterprises, has to be nominated to deliver the projects identified by the recipient country. Under this arrangement, the funds remain in Chi

WINGTI AND PO ARE BIRDS OF LIKE FEATHERS FLOCKING TOGETHER

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by CHARLES K MARKOP Politics is an art and if you master it well, you can maximise your gains. The front page coverage by Post Courier, released after 3 weeks of the actual event, tells many stories. Here, former Prime Minister and currently governor of Wester Highlands Province Hon Paias Wingti (PW) is openly commending that Prime Minister Peter O’Neill (PO) is doing well and he (PW) is optimistic about PNGs future under O’Neill’s leadership.  The unholy alliance between PW and PO has a rich history. PO, apart from being a Bill Skate and PNC man, was one of those persons including the Maladinas who lived off Wingti. In 2002, PW orchestrated PO’s first election victory when he (PW) mobilised his men to destroy Roy Yaki’s (MP for Ialibu Pangia at that time) ballot boxes in Nebilyer towards Southern Highlands border.  In the 2012 elections, it is open secret that Ben Micah, through his relative Ken Kaiya (Government Printer), organised extra ballot papers for PW, PO and Mic

EXCITING TIMES YET CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR PNG EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY SECTOR

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by KOMBOL GIBSON   PNG is endowed with a $19bn oil and gas industry. The size of this industry is set to double and almost triple. It’s an exciting prospect for PNG but challenges remain for delivering that blessing to every man, woman and child in PNG. In fact the opposite is happening. PNG should be concerned. There is a large focus on Government-funded programmes in the Hela and Southern Highlands Provinces instead of a more equitable arrangement for all 21 Provinces in PNG. That is a story for another day and a subsequent article, but the upshot of this focus on Hela and SHP is that the vast majority of it ends up in the hands of elites from these Provinces that reside elsewhere, access health services in Port Moresby or overseas, send their children to school overseas, maintaining multiple wives and mistresses and invest in Port Moresby or overseas. So roughly 80% of funding that gets diverted to Hela and SHP ends up in the pockets of Ministers, MPs, senior public servants, a

EXPENDITURE IN PNG’s 2016 BUDGET – A Detailed Analysis

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by PAUL FLANAGAN PNG is a high-taxing and very high-spending country relative to its Asia Pacific peers . Most of any adjustment to the fiscal balance should therefore occur on the expenditure side. PNG is planning to do this with a drop in the expenditure to GDP ratio from the highest level ever, of 38.1% in 2013, to its lowest level ever, of 24.6% in 2020. PNG has never attempted such a fiscal consolidation – not even to recover from the fiscal crises of the 1990s. Putting this into an international perspective, PNG is seeking to adjust government expenditure by 13.5% of the economy. This is more than double the government expenditure reductions undertaken by  Greece  of 6.3% (from 51.4% of GDP in 2010 to 45.1% of GDP in 2015). Of course, PNG is not facing a Greek-style fiscal crisis (at the start of its crisis Greece had a broadly similar deficit of 11%, but a much higher public debt level of 170% of GDP), but it is planning a similar or more draconian response. PNG is seekin

HUGE HOLES IN PNG 2016 BUDGET - Errors in GDP and External Account Calculations

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by PAUL FLANAGAN   Papua New Guinea’s budget , released on 3 November and rushed through Parliament the same day, could have been so much better. Given the country’s record deficit levels, fiscal consolidation was vital even before the fall in international commodity prices. However, the proposed expenditure cuts do not match the government’s stated priorities of protecting health, education and infrastructure. They are also excessive – even more than those imposed on Greece as part of its structural adjustment program. Further, the budget suffers from factual errors relating to GDP and the external accounts, a lack of revenue effort, and inadequate transparency. This is the first of two posts providing a detailed analysis of the 2016 PNG Budget. GDP errors The budget makes a serious error in calculating PNG’s nominal GDP – and this affects all the key ratios and messaging from the budget. The nominal GDP budget estimates assume there has been no fall in LNG