Politics in PNG

[John Abi]

Old Somare should leave now ias he has run out of self esteem, ideally time to leave is now.

[Bjay]

I couldn't agree more....he is really not in touch with the realities of an average PNGan and probably never did. He has been involved in one too many contraversies, it is a wonder he is still running the show. The latest being his denial of poverty in PNG, which clearly goes to show he is living in another world. Poverty is not based on whether one has food to eat only...it is about the standard of living and basic services that one has excess to, such as health, education, infrastructure etc, which we all know is in bad if not worse state than ever. Old Somare in his wisdom omitted to tell the world the truth about life in PNG....where the rich (like him) are getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Yes I also think he should retire now.

[Renaissance]

Brother I am with you on this comment. Must leave quickly befor he turns into Idiamin Dadah. The sooner the better for the nation.

[du dua]

When you grow older you grow wiser, but when you grow more older, you loose your good sense of understanding and decision making. I think Somare has grow more older and so needs to stand aside. Its good he has brought us to this stage, but its time he needs to stand aside and be an observer. He should be proud his son author has taken his place.
Is,nt he tired or is he just power hungry

Renaissance said:

Let me tell you my friendBen Howard, If you were a real Papua New Guinean nationalist you would be talking very emotive rather than just posting a comment. We must be very emotive of our rich country and talkfrom the bottom of our hearts and thus with the stream of our blood. I am talking with emotive because i am feeling the pains of corruption right in the centre of my heart. Everytime i read about corrruption in the current government i have sleepless nights.

Really we should point our fingers at the government for all the issues that are affecting our country. The government is the sole cause of all these problems and not the public servants, the unemployed youths and the rest of the ordinary citizens as you have said. Everytime, everyday, the public servants are the most hardworking people in this country and mind you it is not the prime minister, MPs, ministers and departmental heads who is running this country, it is the poor hard working publics servants who have sleepless days and sleep less nights doing the most dirtest jobs just to get few bunch of Kina while our politicians enjoy the luxury from the hard work of these poor people.

Just think of the poor informal sectors on the streets trying their very best to earn something for themselves and their family. They are the ones who is holding and boosting the economy of this country and not the huge business houses. Remember that the huge business houses motive is to make profit here and go back to their country.

For your information, I have served this country with my whole heart ever since and I still love this country. That is why i am speaking from the depth of my heart that this country is heading noway.For your information, i would like you to read more on corruption in this country involving the government ministers and department heads in the website given please. www.masalai-i-tokaut.com. If you are a real nationalist, speak from your heart with emotion and not just posting out general comments.
If so you would post out general comments, then you are ok and not a victim of corruption. Thus you are just wasting your time. Otherwise speak with emotion as a nationalist.

For your information read this out!!!

Masalai i tokaut
Number Forty Seven: 9 July, 2006
Pruaitch & Somare chopping down the Sepik
The Prime Minister and his lieutenant, Forests Minister, Patrick Pruaitch, are heavily implicated in a series of new illegal and unsustainable logging operations across their homelands in East and West Sepik Provinces.
In January, Masalai revealed how the Prime Minister and his family were involved in the illegal logging of the Lower Sepik by Malaysian logging company, Brilliant Investments.
Since then Masalai has uncovered evidence that Brilliant has started up a second unsustainable and illegal operation in the old Hawain forestry area.
Masalai has also uncovered the facts about the involvement of Minister Patrick Pruaitch in the illegal logging of the Aitape Lumi Consolidated concession area in his home region.
These revelations should greatly interest the International Tropical Timber Organisation which has accepted a personally invitation from the Forest Minister and the Government to hold its grand 2006 Council Session in Port Moresby.
Desperate for funds for the 2007 election, Prime Minister Somare and his lieutenant Patrick Pruaitch have facilitated illegal logging across the Sepik region.
Aitape Lumi
Since his election to Parliament in 2002, Patrick Pruaitch, The Minister for Rimbunan Hijau, has been desperate to cash in on the forest resources around his home area in the Aitape-Lumi region of the Sepik. However he has been frustrated by the PNG Forest Authority which regards the four proposed timber harvesting concessions in his electorate (Wes, Aitape East Coast, Tadji Romei and South West Wapei) as each too small to sustain a proper sustainable logging operation.
Find us on the web: www.masalai-i-tokaut.com
Undaunted, the Forest Minister instructed the Forest Authority to stitch the four areas together into one giant project covering more than 400,000 hectares.
This was totally illegal as the forest resource owners were not consulted and have never given their consent; the Minister does not have the lawful authority to direct the Forest Authority on such issues; it ignores the fact that the four areas are not even contiguous; and it breached a National Executive Council decision in 2002 that ordered the areas be put aside as non-priority areas for development.
Forestry officials tried to protest the Minister’s decision but they were cowed into submission by Pruaitch and his heavies and work was begun on the allocation of the newly named Aitape Lumi Consolidated Forest Management Area.
Regardless progress has been slow – in large part precisely because the landowners have not given their consent and do not want a consolidated project. Forest Officers have been also been plugging away trying to go through many of the proper processes and procedures – much to the frustration of Minister Pruaitch.
By late 2005, with time ticking down to the next election, Pruaitch decided he could wait no longer and he struck a private deal with Malaysian logging company Samas to immediately bring its logging equipment onshore and commence logging operations using phoney Timber Authorities issued with no due process (and which should not be issued in FMA areas).
While Patrick Pruaitch has been standing up in Parliament defending the Malaysian-owned logging industry against charges of illegal and unsustainable logging, he has been guilty of the ultimate HYPOCRACY as he knew that he had personally organised and approved the illegal and unsustainable logging of his own electorate!
The deal that has been struck between the hoax landowner company Aitape Lumi Consolidated Forest Resources Limited (set up by Patrick Pruaitch using his political cronies) and Samas allows the logger to unlawfully clear-fell whole areas of forest which is totally illegal under the Forestry Act.
The agreement also includes a specific clause under which Samas advanced K 100,000 to be used as bribes and ‘gris moni’ “to expertise the issuance of the relevant approval” as soon as possible.
Find us on the web: www.masalai-i-tokaut.com
Meanwhile the pleas of the genuine resource owners have been ignored.
A petition to the National Forest Authority has simply been filed away by Officers too scared to confront their Minister.
The Genuine Landowners Petition Find us on the web: www.masalai-i-tokaut.com
While Forestry Officers admit privately that the logging is illegal and certainly not sustainable, the Forest Authority has taken no action to stop the illegal activities. Instead the Forest Authority is patiently going through the proper allocation process seemingly unaware that the Minister has already stitched up the logging deal.
Hawain
The Hawain concession in East Sepik is currently being logged by a company called Uni Rise Limited.
This operation is completely illegal as the original Timber Permit for Hawain expired in April 2002 and there is no power under either the repealed Forestry (Private Dealings) Act or the Forestry Act 2001 as amended to extend timber permits granted for Local Forest Areas.
The operation is also breaches the law as the logging is completely unsustainable – at its currently projected logging rate of 106,000 cubic meters per year the remaining forests will be totally decimated within 3-5 years – and it is not in accordance with the National Forest Plan which claims Hawain was logged out in 1999.
Hawain was first logged between 1962 and 1982 by Sepik Timbers and then again in the 1990’s by Rimbunan Hijau subsidiary Sovereign Hill. The Hawain Local Forest Area was declared in April 1992 - in breach of a Government moratorium on new logging licences and while then Prime Minister, Rabbie Namaliu, was overseas and while a new Forestry Act was still awaiting gazettal!
Uni Rise is owned or controlled by Brilliant Investment Ltd which is itself logging in the Lower Sepik (although no connection is shown between the two companies in the records of the Registrar of Companies).
Uni Rise has been exporting its illegally harvested logs since November 2005. Find us on the web: www.masalai-i-tokaut.com
Lower Sepik
In June 2005 Brilliant Investment began moving logging equipment in to the Lower Sepik area that is the home base of the Somare family and the central part of Sir Michael’s electorate.
Brilliant Investment Limited was registered with the Investment Promotion Authority in July 2004 and is wholly owned by Gohill Timber, a company registered in Sarawak in Malaysia. Brilliant has two Moresby based directors, Mr Yu and Mr Ling.
Felling began in July, with the company specifically targeting only the highest value species with the forest. The first logs were exported in August and since then an average of 8,000 cubic meters of logs, with a declared value of over half a million US dollars, have been exported every month.
Brilliant Investments is using a Timber Permit which expired in October 2001 but which is still held by Michael Somare through the Sepik River Development Corporation, LFA 1-11.
This timber operation, which is illegal for a whole host of reasons, has been personally organised by the Somare clan to provide election funds for 2007 and profit their clan.
The logging is illegal on a whole host of different grounds. There is no valid Timber Permit; the logging is unsustainable; local people have not consented to the new timber operations; the procedures and requirements of the Forestry Act have not been followed; and the logging of the Lower Sepik is not part of the National Forest Plan.
The Barnett Inquiry in 1988 revealed how Michael Somare had abused his position as a Minister to block the abolition of Local Forest Areas which were being used by politicians to defraud local landowners and profit themselves and the foreign owned logging industry.
Barnett also found that the company which had pushed for the declaration of the Lower Sepik LFA and was ultimately successful in obtaining the timber rights was called the Sepik River Development Corporation Limited and that Michael Somare was one of three Directors in this company and the MAJORITY shareholder. Somare was also found guilty of abusing his position as a Minister to ensure that his company was awarded the logging rights - against the advice of the Department of Forests.
Having persuaded the NEC not to repeal controversial legislation until he had personally profited, Michael Somare then abused his position to force the Minister to unlawfully issue logging rights over an area of forest that he did not solely own and against the advice of the Department of Forests. Somare then granted those illegal logging rights to a Chinese company part owned by his son.
Find us on the web: www.masalai-i-tokaut.com

[Kaiam Bees]

Dear all,
Thank you very much for the topic and the discussions here. I think we the PNGeans owe a word of thanks to Sir Michael who was indeed as talented and instrumental leader to take this nation out of a foreign hand without any blood shed. Besides him were few other key figures who shape and design the future of PNG, politically, constitutionally, socially and economically.
We thank Sir Michael (Pangu Party) and First Opp leader late Sir Tei Abal (Wabag MP) (United Party) because these guys with their first political parties made a great impact in bringing up of the independence in 1975. Other great contributors are Sir Rabbie Namaliu, Sir Julius Chan, Fr John Momis, Sir John Kaputin, Anton Parao and Paul Torato.
Others who have left us are late Sir Silas Atupate, Sir Yambake Okuk, Sir John Guise, Sir Albert Kipalan, Sir Buri Kidu, John Watts and Sir Sinake Giregire have also played an instrumental role in structuring the constitution, economy and the political system of the country.
We thank Grand Chief Sir Michael and those who are still living to this date and those have left us for their collaborative efforts to get PNG out of the foreign hands. With due respect, I must say that that nation now needs young leaders with new mind sets and visions who can take this nation forward to the next 34 years. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks. With the advance of globalization, economics and trade, we need to have young and innovative leaders who are really focused on those issues and take the country from here and move forward.
Thank you for the topic posted for discussion. The elites and the future creams of this great nation need to ask and analysis issues like this about their beautiful nation (PNG)
Mioks Voice!

[Random]

GOD BLESS SIR MICHAEL! He really doesnt need your arrogance and criticsm,the father of this nation most creatainly deserves some respect....The issue of retirement for him,is yes inevitable but it is a vital decision that only he can make,so please have some integrity for yourselves and give this gentleman some peace.......PNG SALUATES YOU 34YEARS ON!

[Gia Mann]

No politician is squeaky clean and dirt sticks.

Does any one know how the Grand Chief was involved in the "Fine Cotton" affair?

I hear some people are now changing Chief to Thief?

If you are not satsified start lobbying for a change at the elections but how do you do that in a country with people so isolated and communications little better than a two tin cans and a pice of string?