PNGBLOGS

Congratulations, Mr Polye, on winning the re-count for Kandep district!  We realise sinister political forces were at work to bring about the re-count.  Thankfully you won. PNG needs your leadership now like never before.  As you know we are currently saddled with a limping-along economy that is likely due to corrupt government.  The eyes of all Papua New Guineans are on you to take the lead in challenging the O’Neill administration.       One year ago in the October 8, 2015 edition of the Post Courier you were spot on in your claim that the PNG LNG funds were being parked in an account in Singapore, and not in the Bank of PNG as claimed by the O’Neill administration.  Thank you for bringing that to the light of day. You can’t rest now.  You need to continue to hammer away and demand transparency of  government finances.  In particular you need to focus on the UBS loan, now rolled into a Credit Suisse loan.  Secondly you need to demand full disclosure of the PNG LNG income.

by WALI DAVID In the first part of this article, I began to outline the strategy that almost guarantees PNG winning the 2017 elections in a landslide and puts the Prime Minister in position to remain in power for as long as he wants, even for life.   There are 4 different parts to this strategy.   In Part1, the necessity of focusing the 2017 campaign on rural open seats and forget about urban electorates was explained.   Following that, the need to politicize the Electoral Commission so that it came firmly under PNC control but remaining a government body was explained.    We will now turn to the 3 rd strategy of the grand plan that would allow the PNC to win the 2017 election in a landslide.   GRAND STRATEGY 3-  AT THE BEGINNING OF ELECTION YEAR, BEGIN TRANSFER OF LARGE SUMS OF PUBLIC MONEY TO RURAL DISTRICTS This part of the strategy involves putting together a massive warchest to fund candidates.   Specfiically, it involves acquiring and sending large sums of p

Dear Honourable Members of Parliament.  Papua New Guinea is not broke but only one person is holding this country to ransom, and the consequences will adversely affect your political careers. if you allow Peter O'Neil to be in power after 13th June, 2016, the default date of the UBS loan, UBS will likely declare PNG insolvent. Meaning PNG government can print K3 billion but we do not have the foreign currency to convert this printed money. World Bank is already in the country, they are funding roads and infrastructures now, after we've been declared insolvent under Peter O'Neil. World Bank IMF will give us money for Budget Support with the following austerity measures: 1. No DSIP/PSIP 2. NO Free Education and Health Care 3. Budget cut by 60% 4. Customary Land Mobilisation Program The stoppage in DSIP/PSIP funds will affect most the programs you honourable MPs have created and you will end up loosing your seats. Many other consequences you might face. Tuesday is

by MICHAEL JOSEPH PASSINGAN O’NEILL GOVERNMENT MPs PUTTING HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF KINA FOR HOSPITALS INTO THEIR OWN SLUSH FUNDS Every day thousands and thousands of sick people queue up at hospitals and health clinics across the country seeking treatment or medicines for themselves or their loved ones. But as Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and his colleagues and cronies steal more and more money, borrow more and more money and waste more and more money, those people are increasingly being turned away. It does not matter how sick you are or who you are. Children with infectious diseases, pregnant mamas, bubus with heart illness, people suffering from malaria or TB, diabetes and hepatitis patients – all are being turned away. PETER O’NEILL SLASHING HEALTH BUDGET Welcome to Papua New Guinea under the O’Neill Regime. PNG Blogs recently revealed how the Prime Minister’s promises not to cut spending on essential services such as health were just lies. According to the 201

by FRANK KALUWIN PNG credit rating has been downgraded from B+ during the tenure of the National Alliance Party, To B- recently now B1 to B2, Even the Bank Of New York had withdrawn their Guarantee for Papua New Guinea. The World Bank is not stupid, they will not lend money to PNG because they know, as soon as the money lands on the PNG shores, Peter O'Neill open his back doors to benefit himself more than the country. However, the World Bank group will want to fund interventions directly instead just hand it over, that is if they do. If the World Bank  Group agree to loan the money; there will be no DSIP/PSIP for the MPs, we will then see the real colors as why all Members of Parliament  can't leave Peter O'Neill. Moody's Investors Service has today (25th April 2016) downgraded the Government of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) foreign currency and local currency issuer ratings to B2 from B1. The outlook on these ratings is stable. This concludes the review for

by GOVERNMENT INSIDER In a meeting with some World Bank people and some former Ausaid Consultants to PNG, this is what they had to say about PNG parliamentarians and the current government's management of the economy. They say, 99% of our parliamentarians are economically and financial illiterate. For example; They do not have any idea about the UBS Loan or the LR Generator deal, or even the importance of the 2016 budget document, as such no one is capable of debating the nitty gritty ties of such enormous financial transactions and legislations provocatively.  They even don't care about the economic implications befalling from such decisions. Therefore PNG Parlaiment under the current regime lacks good governance. What a shame? The other thing, they said there is no prudential Management of the PNG economy by the Peter O'Neill government, they said the current government manipulated fundamental data and statistics on the real GDP, a sign shown by the 2015 budget outcom

by DIANNE RUT Peter O'Neill's long-running legal battles were merely to protect himself. He managed to corrupt the independent institutions like Police and Ombudsman Commisson to protect him. He is spending millions of kina in legal fees legitimised by his corrupt Attorney General Ano Pala. He has cannibalised all the small parties including coalition members.  He has used the DSIP funds as a tool to force MPs to migrate to the Government, leaving the opposition weak numerically. Penetrating the Protected -Judiciary We have witnessed his unrestraint behaviour in exploiting and testing the limits of the Court process, ably assisted by legal predators. It is open secret that a few judges have been compromised in the process and stood up for him.  New Developments O'Neill has manipulated his corrupt government to introduce a bill without notice in Parliament today (23/3/16) to introduce a High Court. The Bill was never in the notice paper, nor was the idea of

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 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

by PAUL FLANAGAN Potential crisis – what does this mean? • 3 types of crisis observed in countries through time (talk will focus on first, and some comments on second) • Fiscal crisis (PNG – first and second 1990s crises) • Government runs out of money to pay its bills. • Potentially manifested by shortage of government cash, ‘out of the ordinary’ borrowings, printing money, much higher government security interest rates. • External crisis (PNG – first and second 1990s crises) • Running out of foreign currency to pay bills (either private or more particularly government) • Potentially manifested by various forms of exchange rate controls, tariffs and quotas, foreign currency borrowings. • Muddling down crisis (more African and South American examples) • Pattern of continuing poor decision making undermining sustainable growth. • Medium to long-term timeframe – a slow bubbling crisis that may extend over a decade. • Potentially manifested by pattern of poor eco