PNGBLOGS

by ROBERT MORUMBU Several defenders of Peter O'Neill and his infrastructure scam commented on PNG Blogs when the article comparing dictator Kim Jong Un's (North Korea) infrastructure infatuation with Peter O'Neill's infrastructure infatuation. The point made was that both countries have been emphasising iheadlong dedication to infrastructure creation. North Korea has been doing it for years and it hasn't achieved much in improving their integral human development for the people as a whole. PNG is basically following the North Korea model and the results as a far as real development is concerned, is likely to be the same disappointment as North Korea is getting. Peter O'Neill's infrastructure boom is a scam for several reasons. First, a lot of it is built with loan money, which all has to be paid back with interest, using the taxpayer's money. Second and worse, when the infrastructure is built poorly, it falls apart before the loan money used to bu

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

NIUGINI OUTLOOK The now infamous John Mangoes of PNG Power CEO fame was Digicel PNG CEO until the end of March. Mangoes competency at Digicel was questionable as Digicel service was frequently erratic and some things just seemed never to be fixed. But this past January, it was under Mangoes direction that the new Digicel customer service unit was establis hed under a returning Lorna McPherson and the much hated "no warning message before the voicemail charge" policy was finally done away with. At least that's what we thought. But the voice mail warning has come back on, with no advance warning, in the typical "we don't give a Sh!t about our customers" way. What happened to the supposed commitment to customer service? Enter Maurice McCarthy, another Irishman seeking to shovel as much money as possible towards Irishman Denis O'Brien, as he struggles under an overall Digicel debt of around USD $6 billion. The last 2 years of Digi

by JACKSON LEVONGO Papua New Guinea will have one of the best world's renowned  hotels. The Mineral Resource Development Company is proud to bring to Port Moresby, the first ever HILTON HOTEL. The Management agreement signed early last month between MRDC and Hilton World Wide will see the construction of a 5 star 212 premium room hotels in Port Moresby. The Hilton hotel is part of MRDC group subsidiaries latest development project, the STAR Mountain Plaza to be launched today. Under the agreement, Hilton will manage the Hotel and a convention centre within the Star Mountain Plaza. Papua New Guinea will have one of the best world's renowned    Western Province people are so naïve & gullible and gutless and continue to be fooled when their compensation monies from the Ok Tedi Mine pollution continue to be misapplied and siphoned out by use of various methods that seem legitimate with the impression of associations with world renowned company but in f

by MARK POWIA Below table shows prepaid data plan pricing for both Digicel and Bmobile.   A few points to note are: In bundle charging refers to the per megabyte rate that a customers will be charged if they buy a specific prepaid data plan. So for example if I buy 1 Day Pass from Bmobile which is K3 for 50MB, I will be charged at 6t per MB when I browse the internet. If I buy a 1 Day Pass from Digicel at K3 for 60MB, I will be charged at 5t per MB. Bmobile & Digicel both charge by billing block, this is not the same as the charge per megabyte. Bmobile charges 0.03t/10KB while Digicel charges 19t/400KB. What does this mean for prepaid data consumers? Before we get to the answer, let’s explain how data units are calculated.   1024KB is equal to 1MB and 1024MB is equal to 1GB. Now the billing block charging means that if a customer switches on their data connection on their smartphone and initiates s a data session of 5KB only, if you are on Digicel you will be ch