PM failed to act on trio: Marat

RABAUL MP Dr Allan Marat has questioned Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare for failing to remove the three MPs implicated by suspected bank robber William Kapris, The National reports.

He said Kapris had revealed the names of two ministers and the deputy parliamentary speaker in the Supreme Court.

One of the two ministers named was suspended treasury and finance minister Patrick Pruaitch.

Marat said Correctional Services Minister Tony Aimo and Deputy Speaker Francis Marus were still holding on to their offices despite the revelations of their alleged involvement with criminals.

“Can’t the prime minister act swiftly to remove them to salvage whatever decency there is left of the government?” he told a large crowd in the Kokopo Secondary School hall for the 2010 Kokopo Walk against Corruption forum on Sunday.

“If the prime minister cannot, then he should come out in public and tell the nation why he is holding on to them.

“I stood up for what is right that went against the government’s interests and Sir Michael did not hesitate to sack me in the most humiliating manner in front of all the other ministers and backbenchers,” he said.

Marat said Sir Michael’s favourite expression was that “ministers alleged to have committed misconduct in office were presumed innocent until proven guilty”.

“That expression is not consistently applied.

“So what is the real reason for holding them back as there are many capable backbenchers who can do the job?

“Some of us are used by the National Alliance (NA) party merely as numbers to form the government. After that, some of us are nothing but figures to the party,” Marat said.

“We were deliberately avoided and the views, opinions and advice of other people were taken and acted upon, much to our surprise and disapproval.”

Marat said there were no real respect for certain ministers and what the ruling NA party wanted must be done at all costs.

“For lamenting the failures of the past and present governments in not preparing and building up our human capacity in readiness for the extractive industry and in particular the LNG project, I was removed,” he said.

Marat had expressed doubts about the reality of the foreign consultant’s reports on the safety impact of tailings to the environment and citizens on the proposed Nautilus Mining in the Bismarck Archipelago, proposed smelting facility and dumping of tailings at the old Rabaul airport area and Ramu Nico’s deep sea tailings in the Basamuk Bay in Madang.

“My stand against the proposed Maladina amendments to the leadership code was the last straw,” Marat said.

 

Brocade finally out of water

Roz Savage (centre) with Brocade in Madang as she is taken out of water. Picture courtesy of SIR PETER BARTER

By MALUM NALU

Brocade, the boat of British ocean rower and environmental campaigner Roz Savage, is now out of water after an epic 47-day rowing voyage from Tarawa in Kiribati.

Savage made landfall last at 8am Friday on Brocade, completing her three-stage trip and becoming the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean.

She set off in her 23-foot boat from Tarawa in mid-April on the final leg of her Pacific voyage.

In total, she spent about 250 days alone at sea, rowing more than 8,000 miles and taking an estimated 2.5 million oar strokes along the way.

Savage traveled from San Francisco to Hawaii in 2008, then on to Tarawa last year, before finally arriving in Madang.

Savage said that after taking a well-deserved break in Madang, she and Brocade would be moving down to Perth, Western Australia, for the Indian Ocean stretch of her next epic voyage from Perth to Mauritius in Africa.

University of Goroka to proceed with graduation

By KATE GUNN of University of Goroka

 

Acting Vice Chancellor of the University of Goroka, Dr Sam Najike, issued a statement today advising UOG staff, students and the public that the 13^th graduation ceremony planned to be held at the university on June 11, 2010, will still proceed.

 “The graduation will still go ahead as planned, as we (the university) are focused on addressing the graduands”, Dr Najike stated.

 The ceremony will take place this Friday at the University of Goroka, where approximately 280 people from all around the country are expected to graduate.

 

 

Court allows review bid by Somare to proceed

A JUDICIAL review mounted by Public Enterprises Minister Arthur Somare will proceed, The National reports.

The National Court last Friday dismissed an application by the Ombudsman Commission (OC) to dismiss it for want of prosecution.

However, the watchdog itself came under criticism for taking 14 months to file the motion.

Justice Nicholas Kirriwom, while dismissing the application, said: “I am not going to dismiss (Somare’s judicial review application).

“Based on evidence before the court, it is plain that the matter has reached the stage of trial and I shall direct this matter to go back to the appeals and judicial review track for directions in accordance with the rules,” Kirriwom said.

The OC application last March 2 argued that Somare’s review proceedings had taken too long to be heard. Therefore, it should be dismissed for want of prosecution.

However, Kirriwom ruled: “The power of the court to dismiss an action for want of prosecution should be exercised only when the plaintiff’s default had been intentional and contumelious or where there had been inordinate and inexcusable delay on his or his lawyer’s part, giving rise to a substantial risk that a fair trial would not be possible or to service prejudice to the defendant.”

But, in this case, he pointed out that Somare’s lawyer Kerenga Kua’s affidavit before the court showed that Somare had made a number of attempts to have the proceedings heard and competed.

In light of the referral being made by the OC followed by Somare’s judicial review proceedings on Nov 6, 2006, and the dismissal proceedings last March 2, “there is a period of 14 months unexplained since the motion was filed to the time the motion was moved”.

Kirriwom said: “The issue here is whether there has been an inordinate and inexcusable delay in the prosecution

of the plaintiff’s action.

“Kua (for Somare), contended that there has been no delay; everything necessary to bring the matter to trial was done in compliance with the rules of court which, in themselves, have the effect of prolonging speedy disposition of cases.

“Kua also argued that the OC agreed to most of the adjournments sought as being necessary and, through its counsel, gave the impression that it had no problem with the progress being made on the case.”

However, the OC maintained that “the slow progress of the case was a calculated and deliberate choice (by Somare) to frustrate the prosecution of the judicial review application”.

Environmental law amendments: a wake up call for Papua New Guinea

From JAMES WANJIK
Former Secretary for Mining

TODAY we know who leaders work for. Leaders work for worthless money. Money of miners made from people's land and resources. Very truth I warned PNG leaders and people since 2006.

Money is the reason for the creation of Mineral Resources Authority (MRA). If not for illegal tax in illegal production levy MRA would not have seen light of day.

At present MRA is unconstitutional and is operating illegally. Only reason is money.

Other weak policies like land reform and customary land registration are driven by money.

Ramu Nickel mine is very exposed. Hearing Basamuk leaders waking up leaders I breathed sigh of relief. MRA is the culprit in the midst. It is a Trojan horse.

Puka Temu cuddled it and took it in as National Alliance (NA) Government baby after 2007 National Election. I warned against it but Puka Temu saw me as a villain. Now I have the pleasure of being proven right. NA Government will pay.

When MRA brought in the lawyers who drafted the law that created it I knew landowners of Basamuk will be shut out. Swinging out litigation on environment, MRA works for money. Till landowners take on MRA they will not win.

The Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 is a very tyrannical law. It makes our Government of the people now for the miners.

Let us look at the legal implications of the Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 (EAA).

1. Property right [s.1(2) EAA]

Landowners of Basamuk and other areas of PNG have customary land ownership, possession, use of land and can do transaction within the same customary group. This property is protected by the Constitution.

By merely stating this right is compulsorily acquired for public purpose without providing for just compensation the law amounts to expropriation of property.

This makes the Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 unconstitutional as it contravenes Section 53 of the Constitution.

2. Public purpose [s.1(2) EAA]

Mines are money business. No money no mine.

Private investors will invest if the investment will yield certain financial rate of return.

If taxes were collected then mines would be of economic importance to a nation.

I do not agree mines are public purpose business activities.

Public purposes are service oriented. Transport infrastructure, recreation, accommodation and towns are clear examples of public purpose.

Utilities like telecommunication, power, water and sanitation can be public or private depending on object. Profit will mean private and service, public.

Mining is a private business for profit. It is not a public purpose activity.

3. Encroachment on other laws [s.69A EAA]

Mining is a regulated activity. Law on mining lays foundation for other laws. A mining lease is a precondition for mining business for instance. Environmental regulation will regulate this mining business.

The Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 will correct any defect in mining lease approval process and non compliance with condition of lease.

Apart from this, statutory discretions of officials under the Mining Act 1992 will be overridden by the Director of the Environment Act 2000. This is absolutely absurd.

4. Extinguishing cause of action [s.69B EAA]

PNG is a Western democracy. An important principle is checks and balances for excesses of power and authority by any person. The rule of law and due process are to give effect to checks and balances. The Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 gives more powers to one person without checks and balances.

The law also outlaws any legal suit against rogue mines. Ramu mine is very vulnerable without this law.

Ramu mine proceeded with construction phase on unlawful approval of the Chief Inspector of Mines of the MRA in June 2007. The Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 will legitimise this unlawful action by the Director of the Act under an Authorisation Instrument.

5. No regulation of mines [s.87A EAA]

After I was removed as Secretary for Mining in December 2006 and the Department of Mining was smothered in 2007 the mining industry has been unregulated since.

Under the Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 the Director may exempt Ramu mine from any requirement of the Mining Act 1992 and the Mining (Safety) Act Chapter 195A. This will leave lot of very frustrated people.

6. Smelting and tailings disposal [s.87B EAA]

Refinery and processing at Basamuk will produce tailings. It was proposed that tailings will be placed in deep canyons in the Basamuk bay.

Deep Sea Tailings Placement (DSTP) was the subject of recent litigation. There are good arguments on both sides.

Lihir mine is the best practice as it has more information on DSTP than any other mine in the world. Problems there would be surface plume dispersal and tsunami caused by tailings in case of undersea landslips.

Under the Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 the Director may use Lihir experience as best practice.

7. Environment and development [s.87C EAA]

Mining in essence is a dirty business. It is about moving dirt for money. Environment will be harmed.

The law on compensation is provided for in the Mining Act 1992. The process there is compensation by agreement between the licence holder and landholder. And Warden would only make a determination if no agreement is reached.

Under the Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 the Director can issue a certificate of necessary consequence and in effect remove right to compensation.

8. Liability for damage [s.87D EAA]

The general legal position in both common law and civil law jurisdictions is polluter pays. This was legally in PNG until now.

It means polluter will not be liable. A certificate of compliance will bar any claim for damages.

Summary

The Environment (Amendment) Act 2010 was intended to legitimise and outlaw any claim for damages which would have been legitimate had mines been properly legally regulated.

MRA is the culprit PNG must remove at once. It is only interested in money. Money in illegal tax in illegal production levy.

..........Poem..........

Shock and shame for money

By James Wanjik, Port Moresby, June 3, 2010

People and money are not same,

Resource abundance and

development poverty are paradoxes,

Leaders of PNG have lost worth,

Leaving people shocked

and shamed for money.

Well educated politicians

and tribal leaders of PNG,

Telling arrogance of lawyers

working for money,

Making so much noise of gong,

Moving true lawyers

and leaders to act.

Bold and brave so many people are,

Voicing truth and pondering most,

Letting leaders' arrogance laid bare,

Shocking and ashamed

for miners' money

Aid programmes and the real world of Papua New Guinea

BY JOHN FOWKE

DID YOU KNOW that the justly-admired frontline medical corps, Medicins Sans Frontieres, has managed and operated Angau Memorial Hospital's medical and emergency services as best they can under difficult circumstances for the past three years, as an errand of mercy recommended by the World Health Organisation?

And a year or two later, MSF arrived in Tari, the seat of today's burgeoning gas industry . Despite harassment from drunks and criminals there, MSF continues to run this major provincial hospital catering for some 180,000 people of Hela- where for many years there was not one full-time, permanent, practicing resident Papua New Guinea national doctor, let alone the five which are needed, and for whom  aid-funded fully-furnished three-bedroom houses have long been available. Of course Tari's hydro-electric power supply was out of order for many years, needing new parts for its governing mechanism, but MSF managed somehow to get a standby diesel plant operating for the hospital, no thanks to good old Elcom.

With all the fully-justified complaint about the overpaid, often immature and pansy-hands aid-funded consultants being deployed to PNG by AusAid and the multinational aid industry, it would have been a no-brainer, one feels, to have stepped in, MSF-like, with some practical,seasoned, medical and para-medical people to prop up these and many other needy hospitals in PNG. And to send in standby diesel plants and working 'fridges for delicate materials and medicines, plus essential materials and supplies to lost-cause centres like Menyamya and Kikori and Tabibuga and Erave to name only four of many dozens.

However, none of the great brains which fund and design and implement PNG's foreign-aid programs have thought of this. Too busy with REALLY IMPORTANT projects, like telling the coffee industry for the third time in the past  10 years that it needs to re-invent the wheel of on-the-ground marketing practice, a wheel which has regularly been re-invented to no purpose at all by several groups of essentially silly bearded or bilum-wearing white-men apparently  suffering mid-life-crisis or early-onset dementia. Nothing has resulted from all this expensive input, and now yet another team from the vaunted halls of Curtin University is on its way to have yet another go.

All this money would be far and away better utilised if handed to the major, established Church Missions - most of which maintain a majority of honest, idealistic and practical trained workers operating in these essential fields., in well-maintained Church-owned institutions. Whilst I have no religious faith myself I am a strong advocate of the major Christian churches and the programmes both of a spiritual  and a practical, hands-on nature they provide to this society.

I am writing this in Goroka where the district hospital was built and opened in 1967, and for many years remained an excellent institution. Today it is very run-down, facilities for the disposal of general medical and surgical waste, for instance, have deteriorated to where they no longer exist.The nurses quarters appear to have been partly-demolished, with doors and windows stripped from otherwise sturdy concrete-block dormitories. There are nurses present in the hospital, and a pleasant and hard-working lot they are, but one has to wonder where they are forced to sleep nowadays? Supplies and operating funds are always scarce but work goes on even though patients are frequently sent into town to purchase anti-malarial drugs, penicillin, sterile dressings,hypodermic syringes and even humble aspirin and Panadol so that they or their children may be treated appropriately. The politicians of the province pay no heed this, nor to the parlous state of the Goroka sewage-farm which has sat like a great, black, stinking row of Olympic swimming-pools for years  now, growing thick forests of hollow-stemmed pitpit which reaches four and five meters to the sky. A local man, living near this rotting eyesore in what used to be "Beautiful Kolples Goroka" tells me that the pipes were opened long ago and the town's daily contribution of excreta flows, untreated, into the Asaro river. How a community can remain reasonably healthy under these cisrcumstances is a mystery. Goroka, so-far free of cholera, suffers regular epidemics of typhoid. I just wonder about all the villages and coffee-factories situated below the foetid Asaro outflow.

This is just a short list of the wrongs existing within the health system - one could go on and on – and, realistically, like law-and-order, it is a huge social problem in a society which has fallen hard between two steep mountains in its express-ride transition from the Stone Age to the Toyota Age. Nothing will change until the middle-class of PNG realises that it is an entity with the potential to steer this crazy, " wealthy-but-dirt-poor" nation into a clear and open pathway leading to fairness and equal opportunity for all its citizens.The middle-class is made up of the educated and the employed and the entrepreneurial, all of whom hope each day for a better deal for their kids. This will only come when they realise their status, not as "Kerema," or "Sepik", or "Hailans" etc etc, but as citizens of a Commonwealth- the Independent Nation of Papua New Guinea.Once the middle-class understands its real place in modern PNG, once it welds itself into a strong political entity, then this beautiful and loveable country will move towards its right and due place among all the nations of the world.When will this happen? No-one can tell at present for to all intents and purposes this land is still a collection of many mutually-jealous tribes and not a nation at all, in reality. This is a problem that any amount of aid will not solve - PNG society just has to work its way around it. Or not.

Unfortunately there is a shortage of obviously charismatic and ideological proto-leaders lurking in the bush, although we daily look for such to emerge. This will only occur when the middle-class mobilises as such, not as a clamorous mass of jealous, disparate tribes all talking about the same thing . A middle-class which is always missing the point. The point that they are their own solution if only they can stretch their imaginations and act to form a strong, convincing and above all, honest, leadership-block.

A block which also appeals to all the village-based old-timers and all the youngsters now left to waste away in hidden valleys  and dusty settlements with no roads, no opportunities, and and no insight or idea of what the world might be to them if the bonds of lack of opportunity which imprison them were to be  untied.

As for foreign friends, Australia, the EU, the World Bank, the Japanese Government and the ADB to mention the major actors, all these will do well to stop trying to carry out hugely-wasteful "capacity-building" and "re-training" and "niche marketing" nonsense-projects invented and implemented by a generation of spoiled graduate pups who think that by draping a bilum over their shoulder on arrival they have become recognisably assimilated and will be welcomed and valued  and make a contribution to PNG society. The way the ruling-class and the public service has set the system up it is almost impossible even for those elected as Governors to exert influence over the country's administration and fiscal management. Aid-funded advisors are just fiddling around the edges in these circumstances.  A new and differently-aimed set of policies need to be thought about  by the aid-providers. As things stand in PNG what needs to be done is for about 85,000 arses to be kicked and realistically offered the door if not willing to abandon current common practice in the PS and Provincial Administrations. One can't see this happening any time soon and it is with this in mind that donors should seriously re-think their programmes and policy vis-a-vis PNG.

For Australia, lets be sensible and realise that outside of MSF-type medical teams and a limited range of specialist services, the likes of Mal Meninga and his men will do far more for the relationship which Australia wants to maintain with PNG,  and also for PNG  itself, if they or their like are paid to come up and set up and make competitive the PNG League. The National Sports Institute is another target for lots of Australian help and for the formation of links with similar Aussie institutions. And whilst Australia at large is not conscious of the fact,  PNG is, like Australia, one of the few countries which fields an international lawn-bowls team. How about some of the residents of what is now called "Fort Shitscared" in Moresby venturing out on a Saturday afternoon in PoM or Lae or Goroka or Mt Hagen or Madang, to sit with club-members beside the rink and watch nice, sensible, good-mannered midde-class Papua New Guineans enjoy themselves in their spotless whites, accompanied by the odd brown bottle now and then. Here is another place where an imaginative Australia could do so much for both countries. All it takes is a little courage, a little lateral thinking, and a willingness to be a partner rather than a smiling but still heavily-patronising schoolmaster.

How about AusAid funding a tour of a really good Bougainville Bamboo Band around Oz/NZ and the Pacific, ending up at the Edinburgh Festival? This is a magnificent sound, and there are virtuosi available to thrill the rest of the world with it!  This embryo nation needs this sort of confidence-building to make it think and act like a nation, not a collection of several hundred jealous tribes who can't form a bond of common interest largely because under their leadership since independence they have achieved so little as a nation.

From an Australian perspective, lets do lots of a practical nature in the areas of health and education in areas where MSF-style intervention is the only answer to the peoples' needs; lets help develop sport and the arts especially music and dance. Lets get competitive badminton going- this can easily and affordably be played at village level, and its HUGE in Asia. Why not in PNG?

Lets get Australian communities to collect container-loads of books and send them up to nominated communities as demonstrations of good-fellowship and  a desire to help. Lets design and ship prefabricated steel school-library buildings. This list is endless, and with due and careful consideration a much more people-friendly, human and mate-to-mate sort of relationship might be forged between close neighbours than that which exists between us now.We're always going to be neighbours. Always.

Oz lawyers to strengthen Papua New Guinea governance

From PAUL OATES
I refer to the article in today's PNG Attitude titled 'Australian lawyers to strengthen governance'.
______________________________________

This initiative raises a few concerns.
Firstly, why does Papua New Guinea need qualified lawyers to improve public service governance? This is a straightforward management and internal audit function that requires a proven administrative skills set and not a qualified legal one. Also, no overseas applicant should be recruited for these positions unless it has first been established that there are no suitable PNG applicants available.
Secondly, these lawyers should be working directly to the Australian Department and not a consultancy company.
Thirdly, there should be some limitations specified in the contracts to be undertaken by the occupants of those positions in the Office of the Solicitor General?
Here are some suggestions for inclusion in these contracts:
1. There must be a guaranteed outcomes based, independent assessment on a half yearly basis with the Australian employer and achievement targets agreed on, at the start of each assessment period. Non achievement of agreed targets effectively causes contract termination and an automatic cessation of employment.
2. Successful applicants must sign an agreement to conduct an effective training programme with guaranteed skills transfer to at least two PNG officers each year. The agreed training program to be put together and assessed by the law societies of both PNG and Australia on an ongoing monthly basis after discussion and agreement by both the training officer and the PNG officers being trained.
3. Agreed parameters are to be written into each contract to ensure that those officers recruited and the PNG officers being trained will not be in any way undertaking any work associated or involved with the defence of the members of PNG Parliament or PNG public service officers, should these PNG persons be personally or severally involved in any legal action on any issue.
4. Successful applicants must have proven, cultural sensitivity and an awareness of PNG culture and customs.
5. Successful applicants must have a minimum of 5 years proven experience in working with the same types of matters and issues they will be required to work on during the period of their contract.
6. Each successful applicant must be able to allowed to communicate with both PNG government and PNG Opposition members.
______________________
06 June 2010
Australian lawyers to strengthen governance
BY DONALD HOOK

THE AUSTRALIAN Government will appoint three senior lawyers to work with the law and justice component of Papua New Guinea's Strongim Gavman programme.
The programme is designed to improve governance, law and policing in PNG.
Two of the lawyers will be senior litigation advisers in the office of the PNG Solicitor-General.
The other will be a senior commercial law adviser in the office of the State Solicitor.
Australia's Attorney-General's Department, which manages the law and justice but not the policing component of Strongim Gavman, advertised the three positions in Australian newspapers this weekend.
The two-year appointments - with the possibility of a one-year extension - have a tax free annual salary range of $132,652 to $145,385 plus allowances.