BSP rethinks rural banking projects

By PATRICK TALU

BANK South Pacific (BSP) is rethinking its plan to provide banking services in the rural areas over security concerns, The National reports.
BSP chief executive officer Ian Clyne and head of rural banking Paul Thornton indicated last Friday during a media briefing that BSP’s rural banking projects are now being reviewed in light of recent robbery at Kwikila in Rigo, Central, and Daulo in Eastern Highlands.
Right now, there are 10 rural banking projects under way “but given the recent robbery, we have to review”, Clyne said.
“Simply put, if BSP rural could not be protected, then there would be no BSP rural branch in those areas (Daulo and Kwikila).
“BSP’s policy on armed robbery is clear – we will immediately close Daulo and Kwikila BSP rural branches for an indefinite period,” Clyne stressed.
That means the people of Daulo and Kwikila will now have to travel at great cost to Goroka and Port Moresby to do their banking.
Thornton said the BSP rural banking initiative was launched in last year to provide basic banking services across the country.
“This initiative is a community service initiative that would not generate profit for BSP,” he added.
To date, the bank has six branches, namely Kwikila, Daulo, Banz, Minj, Kerowagi and Lufa with staff recruited locally.
Clyne said BSP had taken the view based on previous experience that the people and the local community would have been aware of these pending robberies and might even know the identity of those involved.
The bank executives said the act of criminals now penalise majority of honest and hardworking people in those two areas.
Last Tuesday, the new BSP rural branches in Daulo and Kwikila lost a total of K70,000 to armed robbers.
BSP has called on the people of Asaro and Kwikila to help police solve the case, otherwise the bank might be forced to stop the local service.

First stage of Baisu project launched

By JAMES APA GUMUNO

THE first stage of the K83 million state-of-the-art highlands metropolitan jail in Baisu, Western Highlands, was launched last Friday by Correctional Service Minister Tony Aimo and Western Highlands Governor Tom Olga, The National reports.
Aimo said the project came in seven stages and it would take seven years to complete.
He said that when completed, Baisu would be the first in the South Pacific to have such an infrastructure.
Aimo told a big crowd including Olga, Correction Services Commissioner Richard Sikani, CS officers and the public that the project was a first of its kind funded by Government and AusAID, under its law and justice sector programme.
He said the first stage of the development cost K10 million and the contract was awarded to Simple Blue Collar construction and would take 20-months to build.
He said the project was expected to be completed by next October.
He said the project was aligned with the Vision 2050 under pillar No. 3 and 4, which states institutional development, service delivery, security and international relations.
Aimo said Baisu jail was one of the four regional jails and was a major correctional institution in the highlands region and received prisoners from the five highlands provinces, Morobe and Madang.
He said Baisu was, therefore, earmarked under the correctional service “10-15 years reconstruction plan,” to replace the colonial infrastructure built in 1963.
He said most of the buildings in Baisu were nearly 50-years old and due to funding constraints, they did not maintain them throughout the successive years.
Aimo said the project would bring spin-off benefits to the people living near the jail and also change the image of the province.
He appealed to the community leaders to take control of the people, respect the development, contractors and other service providers who would develop the project.
Aimo requested Olga and his provincial executive council to improve the road from Bak to Baisu, water supply and communication at Baisu jail.
Olga thanked Aimo and the Government on behalf of the 550,000 people for the mega projects and other impact projects in his province.
Olga committed K3 million for the sealing of the Bak-Baisu road.
He also told the Aimo that Baisu jail was included in the master plan of Mt Hagen redevelopment, which was launched last year by Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare.
Olga said Sir Michael allocated K20 million for the city redevelopment and this would be rolled out this year.
He said the water supply in Baisu jail was also included in the master plan.
Olga said under the plan they would have reservoir tanks at Mt Ambra so that the jail would receive a consistent supply of fresh water.
When the project is completed, Baisu would accommodate up 1,300 prisoners at any one time, 80 self-contained units for the married officers, 40 self-contained units for the single officers and 90 houses for the senior officers.

Report: Fat cats feed on doctors’ awards

DISTURBING new evidence has emerged that fat cats in the Health Department have used perks and privileges negotiated for the striking national doctors in their own contracts, The National reports.
Even more disturbing, the “doctored” contracts were approved in a matter of weeks while the National Doctors Association has been waiting for these perks and privileges after five years of negotiations.
Tired of the procrastination, the NDA called its membership to strike last Friday despite a court order restraining the action.
Documents released to The National showed there was double-dipping in relation to housing and vehicle allowances in the contracts of six executive managers of the Department of Health.
Further, overtime, education and domestic market allowances had been calculated and paid to these executive managers over and above those allowable for these positions.
In all, a total of K1.6 million per annum had been paid the six executive managers with total packages ranging from K232,476 at the lower range to K342,561 at the upper level.
Correspondence between a terminated whistle blower from the DoH and the Department of Personnel Management secretary John Kali indicated that the contracts for the executive managers had been negotiated by the NDA for specialist medical officers.
Executive managers were only entitled to standard senior public services category B contracts which do not carry allowances such as housing, vehicle, overtime and education at the levels contained in the contracts, the correspondence revealed.
The NDA specialist medical officers awards were negotiated “to attract and retain our limited highly skilled medical professionals”, one letter dated last May stated.
In the letter to Kali, the whistle blower said: “The NDA specialists medical officers are still waiting for this contract payment to be signed and the very agent, NDOH, that should implement these contracts according to the MoU signed with DPM in January 2010, has decided to draw their contract on this hard-fought contract and have made payments to themselves as effective in April 2010.”
Instances mentioned included the following:

* One executive was awarded and paid K96,000 housing allowance even though the officer had an institutional house and was also paid K60,000 special domestic market allowance for which the officer was not entitled to as it was only negotiated for specialist medical officers; and

* Another executive was awarded and paid K48,000 in minimum consolidated clinical overtime/on-call allowances which was only for specialist medical officers even the executive does not do clinical on-call and was not eligible for overtime as an executive.

Although the department refused a negotiated backpay for doctors of 25%, one of the executives was paid the full backpay amounting to K27,083.
Although new four-wheel-drive vehicles were given to the executive managers, each had worked into their contracts K42,000 and K45,000 vehicle allowances per annum.
Details of cheques paid and alleged fraudulent contracts were made available to DPM, Public Service Commission, the Ombudsman Commission and the chief secretary as well as senior ministers in government.
The whistle blower recommended that the fraud squad be called in to investigate the allegations and for the government to withdraw the devolution of powers to the Department of Health and for the secretary of the department to be suspended.

Doctors go on strike

Court order defied, union solidarity grows
By JEFFREY ELAPA

THE PNG Trade Union Congress has warned of a nationwide rolling strike by major unions as national doctors defied a National Court order to return to work, The National reports.
As the 500 doctors’ strike enters its third day today, other medical workers who belong to the Medical Laboratory Technical Personnel Association of PNG, the Community Health Workers and the PNG Nurses Association are considering their options of industrial action.
The all-powerful PNG Maritime and Transport Workers Union, which handles cargoes at all major PNG ports, also said at the weekend that it was supporting the doctors, who are members of the National Doctors Association (NDA).
Industrial Registrar Helen Saleu last week refused to register the NDA’s grievances as an industrial dispute, preferring to refer it to industrial arbitration tribunal for resolution.
However, umbrella body PNGTUC president John Paska said the congress was planning to call a nationwide strike of its affiliates if the state continued to suppress rights of workers and undermine the trade union movement.
A sympathetic Health Minister Sasa Zibe yesterday blamed the Health and Personnel Management departments’ “administrative slackness” for the strike.
As of 4.06pm last Friday, the doctors started their indefinite stop work after the government failed to respond favourably to their demands for pay increases and improved conditions as agreed in the 2007-10 contract awards.
“We have just gone on strike and we are now on strike and will continue until 4.06pm Monday and, if nothing eventuates, we will all resign en masse,” NDA president Dr Kauve Pomat said.
Two hours into the strike, the NDA executives were served with the court order not to strike but return to court on Wednesday. The doctors refused to accept the order, saying it was late in the day and they were not represented in court.
Deputy Prime Minister Sam Abal had earlier directed Personnel Management secretary John Kali to address the doctors’ demands but Pomat said the secretary failed to meet with them.
The NDA have demanded that:

* An MoA be signed immediately as submitted last September;

* Make funds available to pay the salary packages backdating to Jan 1 last year;

* Contracts of all doctors be adjusted immediately and backdated to last year;

* Kali and Health secretary Clement Malau be sacked for the industrial action;

* Outstanding claims of the 2007-09 awards be met; and

* All Health managers contracts payments be investigated and industrial personnel replaced.

According to the NDA, Kali and Malau had not told the truth about their log of claims.
Pomat said doctors were led to believe that their reviewed job value salary packages would be addressed as agreed to but this was not done.
Paska said Kali and Malau had left the doctors with no option but to go on strike.
“This is the saddest and the darkest hour for trade union in PNG because we are dealing with the people who look after lives.
“Nowhere in the world are doctors treated like this,” he said, adding this sad state of affairs had been dragging for four years.

AAP newsman leaves Papua New Guinea



Outgoing AAP man Ilya Gridneff (left) with his successor Eoin Blackwell yesterday.-Picture by MALUM NALU

 The birth of a baby boy outside Goroka, Eastern Highlands, named Kevin Rudd Jr rates among the highlights of the three-year career of Australian Associated Press Papua New Guinea correspondent Ilya Gridneff.
Gridneff was mistaken for Rudd when he visited Degi village, outside Goroka, that he was feted like royalty and carried on the shoulders of singing villagers when he went to visit the birthplace of Kevin Rudd Jr.
The boy was given the name five minutes after the then Australian prime minister visited a local hospital on March 7, 2008.
Kevin Jr has become somewhat of minor celebrity in PNG, with media attention and international tourists visiting.
Gridneff, 31, leaves tomorrow (Monday March 28) after three memorable years in PNG covering the good, bad and ugly from the ‘land of the unexpected’.
His success is Eoin (pronounced Owen) Blackwell.
Friends and colleagues gathered at the botanical gardens in Port Moresby yesterday to say farewell to a good mate.
“I’ve covered many memorable things,” Gridneff told me.
“It’s hard to pick one which stands out, however, the hospitality of Eastern Highlands people when visiting Kevin Rudd Jr, and them thinking I was the prime minister, stands out.
“And also of an all-in brawl with hundreds of angry Sepik pukpuks, in the car park of Wewak yacht Club, at the Sepik Iron Man in 2009 – it’s something I will never forget.
“But it’s also some of the small things like a night out with local journos, ending up at Baret Club or Club 22, and coming home when the sun is shining are some of the things I’ll never be able to forget.
“I’ll just go bek to village blo mi, Sydney, and just malolo.
“Mi no klia what I’m going to do, maybe write a book about PNG, or enter into politics for Moresby South in 2012,” Gridneff says with a laugh.”
Gridneff’s last words: “Papua New Guinea, you deserve much, much more, and taim blo yu to question ol lida bilong yu, because you’ve got all the talent, resources, cash flow and ability but are being let down by all the conmen who call themselves leaders and bikman.”

Port Moresby wired for change

PNG is moving into the modern age, with the population of its capital Port Moresby approaching one million and set to be larger than Brisbane's before long Source: The Australia

By ROWAN CALLICK in The Australian

PAPUA New Guinea's founding father and Prime Minister Michael Somare, aged 75 next month, was found guilty last Monday of 13 charges of misconduct and on Thursday was suspended from office for 14 days.

Until recently, this would have caused a sensation that would have virtually stopped the nation.
That it hasn't demonstrates how rapidly PNG has changed. It is awash with cash, and corruption. It is wired everywhere, mobiles hanging off every ear, in a way unthinkable under the old government telecommunications corporation. And it is heading to overtake Australia's population this century.
The leadership tribunal, chaired by Australian judge Roger Gyles, found Somare guilty of filing incomplete or late returns on his assets and business dealings to the Ombudsman Commission annually as required.
It is Somare's skills as a leader and a player for 42 years in the PNG political game, which is at once ornate and brutal, that have held together his ruling coalition for almost 10 years.
But this long-anticipated court case has become more a coda to the passing of the old independence era than a decisive central movement of a fresh symphony.
For regardless of Somare's personal fate, PNG is on the cusp of an extraordinary economic, social and political transition, one the country has not seen since gaining independence from Australia in 1975.
Where this change will take it remains utterly uncertain. But that it is undergoing a convulsion is clear.
A new generation is on the move, born since independence and unburdened by sentiment towards the past.
The election due mid next year, for which the manoeuvring is well under way, will indicate who is likely to win or lose from this transition. Usually, more than half the MPs lose their seats, and this time Somare has said he may decide to stand down at last, clearing the way for generational change.
Within 30 years, PNG's population may start to overtake that of Australia as it stands today. Its capital Port Moresby is already approaching one million and appears set to be bigger than Brisbane before long.
Its economy is likely to grow faster than China's this year, more than 8 per cent. Almost every leading resource company in the world is scrabbling over prospects there. Rio Tinto is back after the Bougainville civil war. BHP Billiton is back after the debacle of its withdrawal from Ok Tedi. The first liquefied natural gas project, costing $16.5 billion, is just beginning four frenetic years of construction in the Southern Highlands and along a pipeline route down to the liquefaction plant in Port Moresby. Massive mines are being developed elsewhere.
Port Moresby's burgeoning backstreet lodges are bursting with landowners from gas fields and mine sites desperately seeking their fortunes from government and corporations, from anyone who may be persuaded to compensate them amply for their lost lands.
And life is being transformed especially rapidly by the wild rush into the mobile phone era.
Irish-based company Digicel, which specialises in telecommunications for developing countries, has launched a remarkably cheap service and backed it up by building towers all over PNG, giving its signals a nationwide reach despite its mountainous interior and myriad islands.
Streetside betel nut sellers and people offering single cigarettes for 25c now also sell SIM cards.
In bustling Tabari Place in Boroko in the capital, traders have set up booths where they sell mobiles and all the associated paraphernalia, the deals usually being conducted entirely in Tok Pisin, while in the background young preachers try to attract the attention of the milling crowds.
Downtown outside the US embassy, where security guards hold dogs on leashes and parking is restricted to diplomatic staff, people wander the pavements selling China-pirated DVDs of American movies for $4 a time, as well as memory cards and flash drives.
Papua New Guineans are able to contact relatives back in their villages by phone for the first time. The arrival of 3G has enabled people to go online throughout the country, accelerating the attractions of Facebook, which has already attracted 35,000 users.
Groups of young social and environmental activists -- such as Act Now, Patriots, and The Voice, are building their numbers rapidly via such new technology, and also propelled by a growing rejection of the old politics of PNG: the parliamentary numbers game and the domination of money politics.
A "consultancy" firm run by one lobbyist from Enga province in the Highlands, the populous, high-energy but sometimes unruly region that is coming to dominate much of the country's business and politics, is named, with breathtaking frankness, Money Talks Ltd.
A massive hoarding at the start of the road to the parliament carries the unadorned biblical text of Proverbs 29:2: "When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice. But when the wicked rule, the people suffer."
Chronox Manek is among those sufferers. By rapid evasive action with his car, he only narrowly escaped an assassination attempt 15 months ago by gunmen outside his home but still requires treatment for his left arm where one of the bullets hit home.
He is the Chief Ombudsman, whose most contentious role is to police the leadership code that is the prime tool for combating corruption in PNG.
The foyer to the Ombudsman Commission's office displays posters with cartoons. One shows a sleek politician urging a group of peers: "All those in favour of the construction of this hotel, say aye." A thought bubble is emerging from his head at the same time: "On my block of land!"
Another has an Asian figure saying to an official: "I know you can't accept a bribe. It's illegal. But this is just a loan. Pay me back whenever you can."
The stakes have never been higher in PNG, and thus the institutions established at independence by Australia have never been under such siege, especially the legal system.
Manek, who for many years was the top public prosecutor and has been the leading public defender, and has a master's in law from the University of Melbourne, only pursues a limited number of targets at a time.
It is thus all the more extraordinary that the police have failed to make any charges over this assassination attempt on one of the country's top constitutional office holders.
Manek tells Inquirer: "I'm left without information about what's going on" over the case. "But it's happened, and I'm moving on."
He believes corruption began its insidious undermining of the country's governance in the early 1980s, when PNG opened up to the logging industry.
"Our world was no longer an Australian-focused one but a much bigger world", in this case, that of Asian timber corporations.
Manek's favourite motto is "no sweat, no get".
He believes that has been undermined by a growing culture of taking short cuts to getting rich. And he is keen to educate the public that it is its right to insist that governments deliver citizens the services they are paying for.
"I want to educate the leadership that the public is right," Manek says.
Another figure who is urging on this shift to a new form of leadership in PNG is Powes Parkop, a young former journalist and human rights lawyer who is the Governor of Port Moresby.
He has gained a reputation for cleaning up the city and beautifying it, for new fountains, for Christmas lights, for his organising of family events in the evenings to "reclaim the night" from the rascal gangs,, with some positive indications: young hoodlums being chased away from evening big-screen relaying of rugby league games.
"We need to change the political culture and quickly," Parkop says. "It has gone bad in PNG and we must alter that so that many other changes can happen, too. Too many people have effectively been disenfranchised, socially and economically.
"People have migrated here to Moresby looking for the land of milk and honey, and have found instead a place that is not so rosy."
Sam Basil is another new-generation MP, a young businessman from Bulolo in Morobe province, scene of an early gold rush 80 years ago and where top global mining houses are building or planning to build world-sized mines.
Basil uses Facebook extensively in communicating his views, with his supporters and others.
He says he is concentrating much of his efforts on helping give the public accounts committee of the parliament the teeth it needs.
Paul Barker, executive director of the private-sector-funded Institute of National Affairs, says it's crucial that the government ensures that benefits flow broadly from the new resource projects, especially from the ExxonMobil led gas deal.
"If the government doesn't get its act together and leaders cream off the profits, then PNG will get only the downside, not the upside, from such projects," he says. "As in the Arab world today, the people in their 30s are the talking generation. But the younger generation below them have no special respect for what's happened before."
Australia's role as PNG enters this difficult transition remains substantially shaped by its aid program, which comprises about 14 per cent of the national budget. It is becoming more focused and more practical, advice giving way to implementation.
Last year AusAID built 400 classrooms, provided 500,000 textbooks and trained 9000 teachers. The aim is to raise this to 800,000 textbooks next year. They will be delivered via an international procurement agency, which is also being deployed for the health project that is following these education successes, aiming to distribute much-needed basic medicines to every aid post and clinic, however remote.
Alternative paths towards PNG's development are reflected in the Port Moresby landscape.
Structures new at independence in 1975, such as the "pineapple building" where prime ministers once had their offices and the former main government building nearby, have been abandoned for sheer want of maintenance, today decaying skeletons.
Nearby, Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau -- "forever green" -- has built a massive mall, the Vision Centre. It is still largely untenanted but is likely to fill steadily, including with a new cinema complex that will be Port Moresby's first since its old cinemas were shut as crime soared.
There is an intensity in the humid air, a gathering pace of change, as individuals and the nation as a whole dices for the prosperous future that has so far evaded them

University of Goroka graduation set for next Tuesday

University of Goroka's 14th graduation ceremony will take place next
week Tuesday, March 30, 2011.
A total of 518 students will graduate in the main quadrangle on campus.
Graduands will be from all faculties, including diploma, degree and
post-graduate students.
Highlands Regional College of Nursing will also have 29 students
graduating on the day, along with 10 students from Madang Teacher's
College.
Guest of honour for the graduation will be Dr Thomas Webster of
National Research Institute.
The event will be witnessed by Dr Webster, chancellor Benais Sabumei
and pro chancellor Jerry Tetaga.
Other council members, vice chancellor, pro vice chancellors, all
academic and non-teaching staff, and other special guests will also be
present at the ceremony.
Graduands will also receive prizes for different categories of
university awards on the day. These are: the vice chancellor's
leadership award; academic excellence award; professionalism award;
the Goroka Rotary award; teaching practice award; Val Ward charity
award; and various faculty awards for different programmes.
Major sponsors of the awards will be PNG Toner and Ink Supplies
(Goroka Office), and the Coffee Industry Corporation.