RESOURCE landowners from the multi-billion-kina PNG liquefied natural gas project areas yesterday clashed with security guards after they were denied entry into the umbrella company for LNG structure discussion in Lamana Hotel yesterday, The National reports.
The first commotion occurred at the hotel’s main gate after a drunk landowner was refused entry and the second was by a group of uninvited people demanding food in the hotel.
According to Esso Highlands Ltd, operator of the LNG project and a subsidiary of ExxonMobil Corporation, the meeting was for selected Hides landowners.
“Those invited were the chairmen and selected chief landowners to discuss how to structure the Hides Development Company which has been nominated to be the PNG LNG landowner umbrella company,” an Esso spokesman said.
“The landowners had mistaken the disbursements of the structure meeting for the business development grants distribution, resulting in the clashes,” he said.
Governor Anderson Agiru, when receiving the grants from the prime minister early last week, said the K60 million of business grants would be distributed to the different landowner companies and associations at the project sites and not in Port Moresby.
“The funds are seed capital for businesses and not memorandum of agreement funds to be misused,” he said.
Hotel staff told The National in the second incident, more than 20 landowners forced their way into the Balcony where the meeting was held and demanded food without meal cards.
The waitresses said they were intimidated, harassed and threatened by the landowners to be given meals.
“The angry landowners almost threw plates at us after we refused to serve them meals because they were not listed as guests.
“The rowdy and angry bunch of landowners swore at us and told us that ExxonMobil would never pay them any toea for their work so they should serve them meals,” a waitress said.
Another waitress said the landowners’ attitudes were unacceptable and that the waitresses were so humiliated by their actions.
“We have never experienced such attitudes and we were so frightened.
“Fortunately, security guards managed to control the situation,” she said.
However, security guards manning the main gates said the confrontation instigated by a drunk landowner was brought under control by policemen and women who were called in to help.
More than 100 men and women fronted the hotel entrance but they were refused entry as they were not invited for the meeting.
A few landowner groups claimed they had been sidelined in the structure discussion and left out in the meeting.
Broiler chickens being put through a trial at
the NARI feed testing facility in Lae
By JANET PANDI of NARI
In any commercial poultry
enterprise, be it broiler chickens, ducks or layers, 70-80% of the cost of
production comes from feed.
Feed is the major constraint faced by
smallholder broiler farmers in Papua
New Guinea. Compounded (mixed) feed is expensive and in most instances there may be no
feed mill or mixed feed is not readily available.
Currently, commercially produced
broiler feeds are expensive because most of the ingredients used in the
formulation are imported from overseas.
Smallholder broiler farmers have
been paying the high price of commercial broiler feeds.
The approach of using locally-available feed resources
for cheaper and low density feeds will lead to less cost of feed needed to grow
broiler chickens in PNG.
This would
reduce input costs and improve profitability of this enterprise as there are
adequate supplies of resources such as fishmeal, cassava, sweet potato, fresh
coconut and corn, which could form the basis of the feed industry throughout
PNG.
Additionally, mini and micro feed mills could be established to make
diets in areas where local feed supply is plentiful.
Adoption of the feeding system is considered a
solution for the viability of village broiler farming in PNG which is a
potential method of supporting smallholder poultry operations in other areas of
the Pacific region.
NARI research has developed
alternative feeding strategies that are efficient, productive and profitable
for small scale broiler farmers.
Four alternative feeding strategies
have been investigated for broiler feeding:
1.Using the concentrates to bulk up with local feed resources such as sweet potato
or cassava;
2.Diluting or blending of the commercial finisher
with local materials in the finishing stages;
3.Complete ration formulation using locally
available resources, and
4.Choice feeding.
Formulation of feed is a complex procedure
as different feed ingredients must be blended together. Each feed ingredient has
a given nutritive value, and inclusion of one will affect the nutritive value
of the other.
There are many factors that
affect the capabilities of birds to digest and absorb nutrients; however, the
fact remains that chickens eat to meet their energy requirement and will eat
more if the feed is low in energy and will eat less if the feed contains more energy
than is required.
This is true provided all other factors are
conducive.
Formulation of broiler diets using local ingredients is possible provided
the diet that is formulated meets the nutritional requirements of these birds
in their different stages of growth, such as starter and finisher phases.
Feed
ingredients are mixed according to a special recipe to provide a balanced diet.
Often, only
very few suitable ingredients (feedstuffs) are produced in the country and most
are imported.
In PNG, some of
such resources that have potential to be used in formulating feed are fish
meal, copra meal, palm kernel meal, brewery waste, wheat bran and rice bran.
But these are largely inadequate for
formulating a high quality, commercial poultry diet especially for broilers and
layers.
Synthetic amino acids (lysine and methionine), minerals
and vitamins must be included in these formulations in order to have a well-balanced
feed.
Local resources that can be used as ingredients in least
cost or lower density diets are classified below:
Energy sources: Mostly grains such as corn (maize), wheat, barley, oats and rice. Alternative energy sources include cereals
and milling by-products such as wheat and rice bran, roots and tubers such as
cassava, sweet potatoes, fruits and by-products such as banana and plantain,
papaya, and other miscellaneous products such molasses (by-product of sugar
cane industry) and fats (palm oil, coconut oil, animal fats).
Protein sources: About 20% of a poultry diet needs
to be protein and some of its sources are legumes such as soybeans or soybean
meal (cooked or heat-treated), leguminous
forage, field peas and beans. Alternative sources are copra meal,
palm kernel meal, brewers’ and distillers’ by-products. Most of these alternate
protein sources are poor in two essential amino acids, methionine and lysine,
and would often require synthetic amino acids to be included. Animal protein
meals include fish meal, blood and bone meal and dairy by-products.
Mineral Sources: Needed at 3-4 % inclusion rate in diets. Important mineral sources
are yeast (also have B-complex vitamins), green fodder (also contain B-complex
vitamins, vitamin A), alfalfa meal, dairy by-products (whey, buttermilk), brewery
wastes, animal by-products and milling by-products (bran, middlings). Limestone
or oyster shell, bone meal and salt are also very useful. Scavenging poultry may get their trace
minerals from wood ashes.
Vitamin Sources:
Ideal sources are commercial premixes.
Under warm and wet conditions of much of PNG, the
formulated feed must be properly stored and must not be kept for more than a
month.
A recent
poultry survey (2003) in Morobe, Madang and Eastern
Highlands indicates that broiler chicken farming in these regions
(small-scale) provides additional income for families. Most farmers raise
broilers out of their own initiative despite high feed and travel costs. But demand
for live birds is high and there is a community agreement over prices. These farmers
expressed concerns over prices of feeds, limited access to information and lack
of assistance from government systems. Survey respondents welcomed extension
and advisory services on low cost and alternative feed options.
Research by NARI using a feed testing facility resulted in the
availability of a database on apparent metabolisable energy values of some
common ingredients found around the country. These values have been combined
with other chemical composition values from literatures and are available at
NARI. Training on feed formulations can also be conducted and skills passed on
to facilitators or trainers and farmers to utilise the knowledge to be creative
and innovative in formulating their own feeds using local materials.
The PNG smallholder broiler
chicken production has a gross value of AUD$6.7million per annum and
profitability can be increased with reductions in feed costs through greater
use of local feed resources.
The feature story by Harlyne Joku "Hope for dying Ok Tedi River ...” Weekend Courier, Saturday, June 26, 2010 pp. 20-21 is a very one-sided
report.
I would have thought Post-Courier would have been a leading light but not so.
Perhaps the funding for the trip and the discussions with the polluters may have overly swayed the reporter and the Post-Courier.
Several clarifications must be made to the story.
1. Law on Mineral Resources Authority is unconstitutional. MRA is operating illegally. MRA is also collecting illegal tax in illegal production levy from the miners including Ok Tedi mine. Post-Courier has not shown how it wants news readers to believe its story when it has not shown how ethical journalism is to their receiving payment for the trip and discussions only with the polluters. Lot of people know truth about Ok Tedi mine. All the journalist could have done was see one and ask.
2. Big dredging operations are not new. What would have been new are how much beneficial impact the dredging operations have meant for the river, off river water bodies, food sources and on lives of people who rely on the river, off river water bodies, and resources for living.
3. Dredging operations is primarily to serve Ok Tedi's interest. The sedimentation on the river bed is making Ok Tedi's copper barges having difficulty navigating the Fly River.
4. BHP Billiton has not gone away yet. They are still at Ok Tedi. They are there through PNG Sustainable Development Program. And PNGSDP is not a PNG company. It is a Singapore-based company holding BHP's 52% interest for the benefit of PNG. PNG only owns 30% in Ok Tedi mine.
5. Environment management has never been a serious matter for Ok Tedi mine at any time. Not even now. Law has been used to protect Ok Tedi mine since its tailings dam collapsed in 1984. Acceptable Particulate Level (APL) was the first environmental regime. It resulted in higher copper level in fish stock in the Fly River. Sedimentation saw huge areas under water longer than normal causing dieback.
6. Legislation was used to continue riverine tailings and waste disposal. Let us be honest and truthful so that we can be judged by our readers fairly and justly.
Muruks player Roderick Puname (with ball) being sandwiched in a tackled
by Rangers Samuel Maniat (right) and Francis Ray. – Nationalpic by AMOS
KAKA ANDAWE
Hooker Baine gets Muruks home with last-gasp try By PETER PIA
MENDI Muruks edged Masta Mak Rangers 10-6 in round eight of the bemobile Cup in Lae yesterday thanks to a last-minute try to hooker Andrew Baine, The National reports.
In the other games, Port Moresby Vipers beat Lae Bombers 20-10, Mt Hagen Kuris zilched Simbu Warriors 30-0 and Rabaul Gurias rode roughshod over Enga Mioks 44-10 in the 2009 grand final replay.
Baine scored the match winner in the 76th minute after both sides were locked at 6-6 for most of the second half . The Lae-based Muruks were first to score in the opening 40 minutes when halfback Joshua Molsi jinked his way through several defenders from 30m out for a brilliant solo effort. The try was converted by Kiwa Kili for a 6-0 lead to the home side. The Muruks, with representative prospect Norbert Kembo and Jackson Undi at the helm, matched the Rangers in the ruck and the game soon turned into an arm-wrestle. Muruks play-makers Kili, Molsi and Baine combined to send Undi over the line only to be denied by a try-saving effort from Rangers’ Nathan Anjo, that dislodged the ball. Rangers forwards began to muscle-up as the game progressed with hardworking Johnson Kuike, Francis Ray, Simon Young, Aaron Mulunga and Anjo gaining yardage and asserting themselves in defence. Anjo controlled the Rangers surges effeciently from his dummy-half role but the Port Moresby franchise lacked the finishing touch in the backline with several scoring chances gone begging. Rangers’ rookie winger Michael Keith came close to scoring in the latter stages of the half when running off a Mulunga short ball only to be pushed into touch and the score remained 6-0 to the Muruks at the break. The tempo increased in the second half when both teams exchanged some hard hits in defence. The visitors eventually found the tryline in 60th minute when five-eighth Mark Mexico put up a bomb which bounced fortuitously for substitute Samson Ene to score out wide. Samuel Maniat successfully converted to level the scores at 6-6. Rangers created more chances when forwards Ray, Mulunga, and Anjo broke the Muruks defence at different stages but were let down by a disjointed and complacent backline. Luckless wingers Joel Ambrose and Keith’s efforts from the dummy-half only highlighted Rangers’ lack of coordination in attack. Muruks made the most of their opportunity with Baine’s individual effort.
The word of Christ was brought to Papua New Guinea in the 19th century.
Evangelists came armed with an ideal, both institutional and individual, which meant commitment to the task in hand above any other.
A task of conversion of a society and its fundamental belief-systems to a radically-different view of mankind’s origin, of the human race’s place in the world and the cosmos, and of individuals’ responsibilities, one to another.
Soon after the initial impact of the early missionaries another foreign force devoted to the imposition of new ways of social management and interaction arrived.
But these men were not driven by a long-term philosophy or objective.
The first colonial governors were driven by a simple imperative; a political one, primarily.
To occupy and to claim sovereignty.
Followed by a secondary concern for sources of trade and the management of what might follow.
The indigenous social-management systems which the foreigners, missionaries and governors alike, encountered were geared to the daily survival, within a situation of competition, of hundreds of mutually-antagonistic micro-societies.
To that extent the system worked well, but the level of enmity shown to outsiders would not permit of any assumption of sovereignty, of rule, without recourse to force, or at least of a demonstration of force.
This was accomplished simply by the aggressive or the defensive, or simply by the demonstrative deployment of the multi-chambered firearms which the newcomers possessed.
The existence of peace within society was thus procured.
Within this altered situation new ideas grew and spread.
Nevertheless, more than a century later, in 2010, kastom tumbuna or its remnant ideals and attitudes are still manifestly present in all sorts of ways.
In particular in terms of continuing tribalism- with its echoes of racism- so deeply imbedded that people often describe themselves as being “ of mixed Madang/East Sepik parentage” etc., etc.,. For heavens sake!
Are people so ashamed of their native country that they shy away from identifying as citizens of it, and instead cite the provinces in which their parents were born?
This feeling of being a member of a restricted ethnic group rather than a citizen of an independent constitutional national commonwealth has resulted in the confused, jealous and distrustful, and thus largely incoherent and weak society which exists in PNG today.
Is this because PNG’s modern leaders have never been able to empower the nation and drive it to any peak of widely-recognised achievement in social development or in living-standards, resulting in some sense of national pride?
Is this why league football, the only international arena within which PNG has demonstrated any continuing level of talent and success, is almost a holy icon to the ordinary people of this nation?
Such an indecisive, weak society will never push and empower the triumphant raising of the democratic and independent nation of PNG as an exemplary developing peoples’ commonwealth where honesty and positivism governs the life and the rights of the multitude.
But we do have a thriving, ambitious and largely-dissatisfied middle-class in PNG; a class consisting of the wage-and-salary earners, the professionals of all types, and the entrepreneurs in all areas of business from big to small.
These people, many of them in their 'fifties today, remember the sort of education and medical attention they received as kids forty years ago, and look at what is now available to their own children and grandchildren; services often to be paid for first, and then found to be wanting in performance and result.
These people are potentially the source of the emergence of a loud, unified and informed voice in the electorate.
A voice sounding from a great many throats across the nation, and a voice which by virtue of its issue from the educated members of each family, each clan, each community is a voice which will be respected, listened to.
A voice whose recommendations and evoked desires and principles will be taken up across the country among the villages, among the settlements, among the illiterate and the impoverished of each and every province as well as among the educated and aware.
As I’ve said before, its time for the re-emergence of the LLGS as an effective community-based control over district resources, over planning and over the restoration of basic health and education systems in the provinces.
But it’s also now time for a leader to step up and adopt the middle-class of PNG as his or her own constituency.
I was of the view that you needed to do a small amendment to the PNG constitution to enable a Governor General to run for a second term.
The wording of Somare motion that the house resolves to have Matane continue in the position I thought is actually seeking parliament’s endorsement of Matane’s nominations one of the candidates for the post.
Only after parliament agreed to that motion by Somare which was seconded by Temu that the house should move to the second part of the voting process which is the exhaustive secret ballot.
Australia is only about 50km from its top end to our Western end, and less than 48 hours earlier they showed us clearly and without any reservations that public opinion on their leaders, government policies and the principals of democracy is an important consideration for those in power.
They made the changes in the party room and took it to parliament to make the announcement for the good of all Australians.
They did it for the good of the country and brought home that age old message that government is the people and by the people.
Isn’t there any body within the party room of the ruling coalition that has any consideration at all for this country or are they all in the game together?
For too long we have sadly allowed the principals of democracy to be compromised by a political group of individuals who have absolutely no intention to part with the privileges they enjoy and GG’s reelection indicates that even Matane wants to hold onto his little kingdom within the comforts of the palace on the Konedobu hills.
We in the media should open the forum to discuss democracy and good governance.
We need to address what constitutes a dictatorial government and authoritarian rule and open up debate on whether those elements have been deliberately allowed and legally manipulated to undermine the constitution and all things constitutional in PNG. .
If the tone of Ano Plala’s statement saying there should be no more debate on the environment policy amendments is in fact removing our rights to freedom of expression, how far do we have to look?
The way all this is unfolding, I wonder if we will have a general election in 2012.
If the value of the Kina does not change between now and after 2012, we are what the world is really saying about us.
GOVERNOR-General Sir Paulias Matane has been “appointed” to a second term in office under very controversial circumstances in Parliament last Friday, in an act likely to be challenged in court, The National reports.
Parliament was a scene of chaos and confusion, with conflicting advice from the speaker and the prime minister as to how PNG’s 9th governor-general was to be appointed.
In an orchestrated move, the government succeeded in moving swiftly to appoint Sir Paulias, using section 87(5) of the Constitution, arguing that the absolute majority secured for Sir Paulias meant that the exhaustive secret ballot vote was not required.
Members who were supporting the other candidates were up in arms, and there were exchanges of shouts and abuses, bringing the whole Parliament House into a state of confusion.
The members watching from the public gallery, incensed by what they believe was an abuse of parliamentary democracy, shouted down the chambers resulting in an exchange of words between the public and MPs including Works, Transport and Civil Aviation Minister Don Polye and Community Development Minister Dame Carol Kidu.
It all started after Speaker Jeffery Nape announced the names of the nominees – Sir Makena Geno, Sir Pato Kakaraya, Sir Paulias and Ronald Rimbao.
He then said since Sir Paulias was being proposed, section 87(5) of the Constitution required Parliament to determine by two-thirds absolute majority vote of 73 members the eligibility of Sir Paulias for re-appointment for a second term.
Members were surprised when Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare moved a motion for Parliament to resolve that Sir Paulias be supported for a second term as governor-general.
Confused, Enga Governor Peter Ipatas raised a point of order, asking the speaker to clarify the prime minister’s motion.
But the speaker, without clarifying, ordered the vote to proceed, even though Ipatas interjected again that the prime minister’s motion was not in line with the process the speaker had explained.
Other point of orders and interjections were rejected by the speaker.
The eligibility vote was taken by open ballot where MPs were required to stand up to vote, which resulted in an 84-13 in favour of Sir Paulias.
The speaker then informed Parliament that Sir Paulias was eligible for appointment as governor-general for a second term, prompting East Sepik Governor Peter Wararu to raise another point of order.
Wararu said there was confusion in what the speaker was saying, as section 87(5) was clear in that no person was eligible for appointment as governor-general more than once unless the Parliament, by an absolute two-thirds majority, approves the appointment for a second term.
Wararu said taking that into account, the speaker needed to make a ruling.
Nape suspended the sitting for lunch to make a ruling, taking into account Wararu’s point of order.
The speaker reconvened the House at 3pm and declared Sir Paulias as elected.
Polye was confused, and raised a point of order, asking Nape to clarify whether Sir Paulias was elected or became eligible to contest.
Nape stated that he was elected, drawing shouts from Morobe Governor Luther Wenge that “democracy has been hijacked”, and Ipatas, shouting, “why are you hijacking this House”.
Leader of government business Paul Tiensten adjourned Parliament to July 20.
