Monday, April 18, 2011
House of Assembly sold
By JUNIOR UKAHA
THE first House of Assembly in downtown Port Moresby is to be turned into a hotel, The National reports.
The state sold the site to the Lamana Development Group which plans to turn the historical building into a modern hotel.
The one-time seat-of-power is located in downtown Port Moresby, next to the AON Building on McGregor Street.
How the land was obtained and why this iconic building was sold to the developer is not known but contractors began demolition work last week.
David Western Constructions Ltd managing director David Kini said they were contracted by Lamana Development Group, the new owner of the area, to clear up the place.
He said his company had been hired to demolish the old House of Assembly and build a replica of the building that would serve as a hotel.
“We have been instructed by our client to demolish the old building and build a replica of it,” Kini said.
The National visited the site last Friday and saw workmen erecting a fence around the property to stop public access.
It is understood that the national government, through the National Museum and Arts Gallery (NMAG), was owner of the land before its acquisition by the Lamana Development Group.
Nine families who lived in the area were paid K200,000 by the developer and told to move out to make way for construction work to begin.
John Sine, from Chimbu, who has lived in the area for the past 35 years, thought it was a joke when he first saw the contractors.
“It looks like the government does not care about the cultural and historical significance of this place,” he said.
“I will not be surprised if the government and other selfish politicians and people in authority sell the country to foreigners in their greed to acquire more money and wealth.”
The state and concerned parties did attempt to restore the old parliament as a national heritage and former governor-general Sir Paulias Matane headed a committee which attempted to raise funds to restore the building.
Money was committed by government but it is uncertain where these funds might be.
The building was formerly a “whites only” hospital in the 1950s and was turned into a House of Assembly in 1961 when at the insistence of the UN and Australia decided to prepare the former territories of Papua and New Guinea for self-governing status.
Attempts to get comments from NMAG and the Lands Department were unsuccessful.
Chinese murdered after killing youth in Goroka
Asian, two local women escape after car accident
By ZACHERY PER and JOHN SUPA
A CHINESE national was set upon by a mob and murdered soon after he shot dead a youth of Chimbu origin in Goroka over the weekend, The National reports.
The Chinese, identified as Alex Seng Da, was in the company of another colleague and two females in a vehicle that ran off the road at Asariufa section of the Highlands Highway on Saturday evening.
When curious youths approached the accident scene, the Chinese man allegedly took out a pistol and shot dead a young man, named as William Morea of Gunagi area in the Sinasina area of Chimbu.
Relatives of the youth regrouped and attacked the Asian and murdered him while his accomplice and the females escaped.
The body of Seng Da and Morea are at the Glenrowen Funeral Home. The incident occurred at around 8pm on Saturday.
Eyewitnesses, who gave accounts of the incident, said Seng Da and another Chinese were driving into Goroka town with two PNG women passengers when the vehicle ran off the road about 100m from the Zokizoi River bridge at Asariufa village near Goroka main market.
When bystanders rushed to the scene of the accident, Seng Da allegedly pulled out a pistol and shot the youth in the head.
The villagers retaliated and beat the Chinese national to death. There were also cuts on his body, indicating the use of sharp objects.
The vehicle involved in the accident was burnt.
The deceased Asian was an employee of Seng Da Supermarket.
Opportunists from the Council Camp and Banana Block capitalised on the situation and ransacked the Bintangor store at West Goroka.
However, quick action by Goroka police prevented further lootings.
Eastern Highlands provincial police commander Supt Augustine Wampe, when confirming the incident, condemned the actions of looters.
He said what occurred on Saturday night was being treated by police as criminal in nature and police were investigating.
He warned opportunists that police would come down hard on them.
Wampe could not establish whether the firearm was licenced or not.
The small Chinese community in Goroka was mourning the death of Seng Da.
Wampe said police knew the identities of those involved in killing the Chinese and would soon be making arrests.
Investigations are continuing.
Wampe also praised Goroka Rural LLG president Jeffery Sasuo for his handling of the situation.
Sasuo had warned potential looters that all buildings in Goroka were owned by locals but were leased to other people such as the Asians and any attempt to vandalise these assets would be met with extreme retribution from the locals.
By ZACHERY PER and JOHN SUPA
A CHINESE national was set upon by a mob and murdered soon after he shot dead a youth of Chimbu origin in Goroka over the weekend, The National reports.
The Chinese, identified as Alex Seng Da, was in the company of another colleague and two females in a vehicle that ran off the road at Asariufa section of the Highlands Highway on Saturday evening.
When curious youths approached the accident scene, the Chinese man allegedly took out a pistol and shot dead a young man, named as William Morea of Gunagi area in the Sinasina area of Chimbu.
Relatives of the youth regrouped and attacked the Asian and murdered him while his accomplice and the females escaped.
The body of Seng Da and Morea are at the Glenrowen Funeral Home. The incident occurred at around 8pm on Saturday.
Eyewitnesses, who gave accounts of the incident, said Seng Da and another Chinese were driving into Goroka town with two PNG women passengers when the vehicle ran off the road about 100m from the Zokizoi River bridge at Asariufa village near Goroka main market.
When bystanders rushed to the scene of the accident, Seng Da allegedly pulled out a pistol and shot the youth in the head.
The villagers retaliated and beat the Chinese national to death. There were also cuts on his body, indicating the use of sharp objects.
The vehicle involved in the accident was burnt.
The deceased Asian was an employee of Seng Da Supermarket.
Opportunists from the Council Camp and Banana Block capitalised on the situation and ransacked the Bintangor store at West Goroka.
However, quick action by Goroka police prevented further lootings.
Eastern Highlands provincial police commander Supt Augustine Wampe, when confirming the incident, condemned the actions of looters.
He said what occurred on Saturday night was being treated by police as criminal in nature and police were investigating.
He warned opportunists that police would come down hard on them.
Wampe could not establish whether the firearm was licenced or not.
The small Chinese community in Goroka was mourning the death of Seng Da.
Wampe said police knew the identities of those involved in killing the Chinese and would soon be making arrests.
Investigations are continuing.
Wampe also praised Goroka Rural LLG president Jeffery Sasuo for his handling of the situation.
Sasuo had warned potential looters that all buildings in Goroka were owned by locals but were leased to other people such as the Asians and any attempt to vandalise these assets would be met with extreme retribution from the locals.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Papua New Guinea’s coffee industry: For the people, by the people
By JOHN FOWKE
Our coffee industry began in a very small way, in the 1890s, soon after the arrival of Australian and German colonists, but it did not begin to grow large and to prosper until coffee became established in the Highlands in the 1950s.
Initially, in the mid-1950s, white settlers took up land purchased from willing sellers and established small plantations; around 100 of these, each of up to 150 acres in extent, although full development took time.
These were owner-managers, empowered more by enthusiasm for the place and the project in hand than by ready capital.
Most were burdened by loans from the time they established their farms until the big coffee-boom of the late 1970s, when almost all of them sold out to local landowner groups.
Today there is only one foreign-owned coffee-plantation operator in PNG, namely W.R.Carpenter Estates Ltd. Of Mt Hagen, owned by Malaysian interests.
Beginning in the 1950s, the developing plantations provided an example, a challenge which was soon taken up everywhere through the main highland valleys.
In the Bena Bena Valley, situated on what had been the original small airstrip and camp used by Jim Taylor and the Leahy brothers in 1933, a great nursery was established in 1952.
Whole communities, enemies and related clans together, travelled from the “het blo wara” and from the lower reaches of the river to till the soil and see the seed-beds established.
In 12, months they returned to receive allocations of tall, healthy seedlings.
In the meantime, they had been schooled in the setting-out, the draining and establishment of shade-trees on their small family-owned coffee blocks.
This went on in all the areas which were under the banner and surveillance of the Administration.
By far the greatest grower population today resides in the five highland provinces, where coffee is king in terms of local commerce and lifestyle.
As a well-known coffee man who has seen it all develop observed, “It’d be a sad old Highlands if we’d never been able to get coffee to grow here.”
A significant minority of coffee-growers, though, is well-established in both the mountainous and in certain low-altitude regions of several coastal provinces.
There is growing interest in establishing coffee in mountainous parts of New Britain, New Ireland, and more recently, in Bougainville, and the Coffee Industry Corporation is working with provincial authorities in these districts.
Thus our industry encompasses by far the largest group of smallholder or village-based cash-crop producers in the nation, in an industry which, whilst with a tendency to be unruly because of its free-enterprise and open nature, is an efficient one in terms of distribution of the gross export income received each season.
By way of contrast the palm-oil industry, dependant upon major foreign investment in the mills and plantations which provide centres of operations which draw product from so-called out-growers, the foreign-controlled company is king and the price for palm-fruit is set unilaterally without the effect of local competition, the central mill being the only buyer. However prices paid to coffee-growers reflect a competitive internal market with a great many aggressive players.
As well, coffee has been adopted seamlessly into the ancient subsistence-farming systems of our land, grown wherever there is the space and the people who want to grow it.
Here are no de-tribalised out-grower communities with all the social pressures and crime related to growing families with very limited land and limited employment opportunities.
Statistics tell us that 90% of the coffee exported from PNG comes from the smallholders, the subsistence-farming village-based sector comprising some 400,000 families conferring a direct, in-the-hand cash income to around 1.5 million people.
The declining plantation sector, faced with heavy pressures of cost and theft, buys and processes some 50% of its own exports of coffee in freshly-picked cherry form from neighboring small growers and the few remaining 20-hectare-scheme blocks.
Thus it actually only contributes about half of its statistically-recorded production of 10% of total exports from its own fields of coffee.
The annual production actually grown by the plantation sector is down to around 5 % of exports although with the added purchased fresh cherry, recorded production as shipped comes to something over 10% of total.
To explain further, many of the old plantations, taken over by local business groups and corporations in the late 70s have languished, defaulted on their loans, and have been effectively abandoned.
Whilst no maintenance is done the coffee which the trees produce is picked and sold by villagers and thus, physically and statistically-speaking, most of it enters the village smallholder sector.
Coffee, especially in the highlands provinces is as much a part of life as gardening, pig-raising and hunting, and is an equal contributor within the complex of inter-clan relations and traditional social observances.
It is instrumental in meeting modern needs within society; clothing, bus-fares, medical treatment, school-fees, as well as customary obligations and bride-price. Largely-speaking, and despite the industry’s efforts to encourage the formation of group-marketing organisations including a number of coffee co-operatives, the selling of coffee is typically executed by individual choice of time, place and buyer.
Despite this there are one or two emerging examples which are very encouraging; for instance the Kundiawa-based group managed by Brian Kuglame and supported by PNG Coffee Exports, who also support a large group of progressive growers near Goroka.
The work done over several years by Jerry Kapka’s Kongo Coffeee at Suave is impressive, and Monpi Coffee Exports of Goroka have invested a lot in time and money in encouraging farmer groups and factories to obtain certification under various price-enhancing marketing schemes.
These exporters are to the fore in engagement with the recently-announced World bank financed PPIP partnership scheme which will place much emphasis upon development of niche markets for smallholder coffee.
In the main, though, and as at present, coffee-sellers harvest, process and then sell or hold in storage according to each individual family’s plans of the moment.
Most coffee is sold either to self-funded roadside buyers who travel out to growing areas during the season, or is taken to centers where there are coffee factories, and sold directly to a factory.
Factories generally pay a bonus to defray the cost of transport in these transactions, and selling at the factory-door is encouraged by CIC for these reasons and for the reason that quality-assessment is usually more stringent at factories whereas roadside buyers are inclined to mix coffee of varying moisture contents and levels of defective beans.
Thus it may be seen that coffee is sold as and when the grower wants cash, and provided it is sold where more than one buyer or factory is present, fetches a competitive price, a price paid in full in a single transaction.This is an efficient market, although in its freedom it has problems related to evenness of quality, as intimated above.
The question of quality control will be addressed in a further article.
As to industry financing, PNG’s banks are historically opposed to lending to coffee-industry operators, considering with justice that the industry is an inherently risky one for lenders.
This is where PNG’s registered exporters come in, for they alone finance each season’s crop, a huge amount in hard currency.
This is something which is not widely known outside the industry.
Our exporters must not only be accomplished commodity-traders with good agents in consuming countries, they must also be able to trade effectively in the money-market, negotiating advances or loans from overseas and landing these when the ruling exchange-rate is favourable.
A knowledge of the money-market and the ability to hedge money transactions as well as coffee contracts against future rises and falls is an essential part of the trade.
If you don’t know how to do this you must have an arrangement with someone who does.
Exporting coffee is a complex, high-risk business, and a great many registered exporters have folded over the years.
Among these were the two largest, Angco Ltd., and Coffee International Ltd., plus many smaller entities.
Registered factories take forward contracts for tonnages from the exporters who will make advances which keep the whole trade rolling on a day-to-day basis.
Coffee is delivered to exporters and new contracts are undertaken; in this way the industry functions throughout the season, turning over product in its journey from grower to factory to point of shipment and on to its ultimate overseas destination.
NEXT WEEK: Who are the coffee exporters? Do Growers get a fair share? Do we really need 21 registered exporters and 53 registered factories? And what is the story about quality control and downstream processing? Look for answers in this blog.
 |
| John Fowke |
Initially, in the mid-1950s, white settlers took up land purchased from willing sellers and established small plantations; around 100 of these, each of up to 150 acres in extent, although full development took time.
These were owner-managers, empowered more by enthusiasm for the place and the project in hand than by ready capital.
Most were burdened by loans from the time they established their farms until the big coffee-boom of the late 1970s, when almost all of them sold out to local landowner groups.
Today there is only one foreign-owned coffee-plantation operator in PNG, namely W.R.Carpenter Estates Ltd. Of Mt Hagen, owned by Malaysian interests.
Beginning in the 1950s, the developing plantations provided an example, a challenge which was soon taken up everywhere through the main highland valleys.
In the Bena Bena Valley, situated on what had been the original small airstrip and camp used by Jim Taylor and the Leahy brothers in 1933, a great nursery was established in 1952.
Whole communities, enemies and related clans together, travelled from the “het blo wara” and from the lower reaches of the river to till the soil and see the seed-beds established.
In 12, months they returned to receive allocations of tall, healthy seedlings.
In the meantime, they had been schooled in the setting-out, the draining and establishment of shade-trees on their small family-owned coffee blocks.
This went on in all the areas which were under the banner and surveillance of the Administration.
By far the greatest grower population today resides in the five highland provinces, where coffee is king in terms of local commerce and lifestyle.
As a well-known coffee man who has seen it all develop observed, “It’d be a sad old Highlands if we’d never been able to get coffee to grow here.”
A significant minority of coffee-growers, though, is well-established in both the mountainous and in certain low-altitude regions of several coastal provinces.
There is growing interest in establishing coffee in mountainous parts of New Britain, New Ireland, and more recently, in Bougainville, and the Coffee Industry Corporation is working with provincial authorities in these districts.
Thus our industry encompasses by far the largest group of smallholder or village-based cash-crop producers in the nation, in an industry which, whilst with a tendency to be unruly because of its free-enterprise and open nature, is an efficient one in terms of distribution of the gross export income received each season.
By way of contrast the palm-oil industry, dependant upon major foreign investment in the mills and plantations which provide centres of operations which draw product from so-called out-growers, the foreign-controlled company is king and the price for palm-fruit is set unilaterally without the effect of local competition, the central mill being the only buyer. However prices paid to coffee-growers reflect a competitive internal market with a great many aggressive players.
As well, coffee has been adopted seamlessly into the ancient subsistence-farming systems of our land, grown wherever there is the space and the people who want to grow it.
Here are no de-tribalised out-grower communities with all the social pressures and crime related to growing families with very limited land and limited employment opportunities.
Statistics tell us that 90% of the coffee exported from PNG comes from the smallholders, the subsistence-farming village-based sector comprising some 400,000 families conferring a direct, in-the-hand cash income to around 1.5 million people.
The declining plantation sector, faced with heavy pressures of cost and theft, buys and processes some 50% of its own exports of coffee in freshly-picked cherry form from neighboring small growers and the few remaining 20-hectare-scheme blocks.
Thus it actually only contributes about half of its statistically-recorded production of 10% of total exports from its own fields of coffee.
The annual production actually grown by the plantation sector is down to around 5 % of exports although with the added purchased fresh cherry, recorded production as shipped comes to something over 10% of total.
To explain further, many of the old plantations, taken over by local business groups and corporations in the late 70s have languished, defaulted on their loans, and have been effectively abandoned.
Whilst no maintenance is done the coffee which the trees produce is picked and sold by villagers and thus, physically and statistically-speaking, most of it enters the village smallholder sector.
Coffee, especially in the highlands provinces is as much a part of life as gardening, pig-raising and hunting, and is an equal contributor within the complex of inter-clan relations and traditional social observances.
It is instrumental in meeting modern needs within society; clothing, bus-fares, medical treatment, school-fees, as well as customary obligations and bride-price. Largely-speaking, and despite the industry’s efforts to encourage the formation of group-marketing organisations including a number of coffee co-operatives, the selling of coffee is typically executed by individual choice of time, place and buyer.
Despite this there are one or two emerging examples which are very encouraging; for instance the Kundiawa-based group managed by Brian Kuglame and supported by PNG Coffee Exports, who also support a large group of progressive growers near Goroka.
The work done over several years by Jerry Kapka’s Kongo Coffeee at Suave is impressive, and Monpi Coffee Exports of Goroka have invested a lot in time and money in encouraging farmer groups and factories to obtain certification under various price-enhancing marketing schemes.
These exporters are to the fore in engagement with the recently-announced World bank financed PPIP partnership scheme which will place much emphasis upon development of niche markets for smallholder coffee.
In the main, though, and as at present, coffee-sellers harvest, process and then sell or hold in storage according to each individual family’s plans of the moment.
Most coffee is sold either to self-funded roadside buyers who travel out to growing areas during the season, or is taken to centers where there are coffee factories, and sold directly to a factory.
Factories generally pay a bonus to defray the cost of transport in these transactions, and selling at the factory-door is encouraged by CIC for these reasons and for the reason that quality-assessment is usually more stringent at factories whereas roadside buyers are inclined to mix coffee of varying moisture contents and levels of defective beans.
Thus it may be seen that coffee is sold as and when the grower wants cash, and provided it is sold where more than one buyer or factory is present, fetches a competitive price, a price paid in full in a single transaction.This is an efficient market, although in its freedom it has problems related to evenness of quality, as intimated above.
The question of quality control will be addressed in a further article.
As to industry financing, PNG’s banks are historically opposed to lending to coffee-industry operators, considering with justice that the industry is an inherently risky one for lenders.
This is where PNG’s registered exporters come in, for they alone finance each season’s crop, a huge amount in hard currency.
This is something which is not widely known outside the industry.
Our exporters must not only be accomplished commodity-traders with good agents in consuming countries, they must also be able to trade effectively in the money-market, negotiating advances or loans from overseas and landing these when the ruling exchange-rate is favourable.
A knowledge of the money-market and the ability to hedge money transactions as well as coffee contracts against future rises and falls is an essential part of the trade.
If you don’t know how to do this you must have an arrangement with someone who does.
Exporting coffee is a complex, high-risk business, and a great many registered exporters have folded over the years.
Among these were the two largest, Angco Ltd., and Coffee International Ltd., plus many smaller entities.
Registered factories take forward contracts for tonnages from the exporters who will make advances which keep the whole trade rolling on a day-to-day basis.
Coffee is delivered to exporters and new contracts are undertaken; in this way the industry functions throughout the season, turning over product in its journey from grower to factory to point of shipment and on to its ultimate overseas destination.
NEXT WEEK: Who are the coffee exporters? Do Growers get a fair share? Do we really need 21 registered exporters and 53 registered factories? And what is the story about quality control and downstream processing? Look for answers in this blog.
Coffee growers urged to cash in on high prices
By MALUM NALU
Coffee Industry Corporation chief executive officer Navi Anis has urged growers to make the most of current record price highs.
The price of Arabica coffee is now at a record high, fetching K7 to K7.50/kg for parchment or factory door in the main highlands centres, up from the normal K3/kg.
Coastal variety Robusta is popping up at the Lae market at K4/kg.
Business is subsequently booming in the main highlands centres of Kainantu and Goroka in Eastern Highlands; Kundiawa in Chimbu; Minj and Banz in the proposed Jiwaka; Mt Hagen in Western Highlands; and Wapenamenda in Enga.
Even the smaller Arabica coffee centres such as Wau, Bulolo and Aseki in Morobe are benefitting from the price hike.
The CIC’s weekly market report last week said prices were lower at the beginning of the week but had experienced a sharp hike.
It reported that Arabica gained by a hefty 15.2% and Robusta by 4.8%.
“Prices have been on the increase for the last 12 months as a result of some weather-related problems in some of our competitors,” Anis said.
“The biggest beneficiaries at the moment are the growers.
“Not too long ago, it was K3 per kg, now it’s K7-K8 per kg.
“What you see now is 15-year record highs.
“The price has been going up, and up and up.
“It has now stabilised at 260 US cents per pound, which is about K13 or K14 green bean, FOB ex Lae.
“The global market outlook is that it will hold for some time.”
Anis said statistics also pointed to a global increase in coffee consumption and this augered well for the PNG industry.
“Global consumption has always been going up,” he said.
“We think the prices will hold, at least for the immediate future.”
Coffee Industry Corporation chief executive officer Navi Anis has urged growers to make the most of current record price highs.
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Women sorting out coffee beans in a shed used by exporter, Monpi Coffee, in Goroka last Wednesday.-Pictures by MALUM NALU
|
Coastal variety Robusta is popping up at the Lae market at K4/kg.
Business is subsequently booming in the main highlands centres of Kainantu and Goroka in Eastern Highlands; Kundiawa in Chimbu; Minj and Banz in the proposed Jiwaka; Mt Hagen in Western Highlands; and Wapenamenda in Enga.
The CIC’s weekly market report last week said prices were lower at the beginning of the week but had experienced a sharp hike.
It reported that Arabica gained by a hefty 15.2% and Robusta by 4.8%.
“Prices have been on the increase for the last 12 months as a result of some weather-related problems in some of our competitors,” Anis said.
“Not too long ago, it was K3 per kg, now it’s K7-K8 per kg.
“What you see now is 15-year record highs.
“The price has been going up, and up and up.
“It has now stabilised at 260 US cents per pound, which is about K13 or K14 green bean, FOB ex Lae.
“The global market outlook is that it will hold for some time.”
Anis said statistics also pointed to a global increase in coffee consumption and this augered well for the PNG industry.
“We think the prices will hold, at least for the immediate future.”
Coffee industry ‘stagnant’, at cross roads: CEO
By MALUM NALU
The coffee industry has been “stagnant” for the last 10-15 years and needs to be revived, according to Coffee Industry Corporation chief executive officer Navi Anis.
Coffee is currently averaging 900,000 bags per year since the all-time high of 1.23 million bags in 1998, following the drought of 1997.
Papua New Guinea is one of 60 coffee-producing countries and accounts for 1.1% of world exports, however, has found a niche market as one of the great coffees of the world.
Despite this hibernation, statistics show that coffee remains the single most- important commodity at smallholder level in PNG – ahead of coconut, cocoa, palm oil and rubber - and smallholder coffee growers remain the backbone of the industry, given the decline in the estate (plantation) sector
Anis made no secret about this in an interview after last Tuesday’s launch of the coffee segment of the US$46.3 million Productive Partnerships in Agriculture (PPAP) project at the University of Goroka.
“The industry is stagnant and at its crossroads,” he said.
“It has been for the last 10-15 years.
“It needs a push start.
“This PPAP facility is very timely.”
Anis said to overcome this stagnation, investment in coffee – specifically through rehabilitation and new planting - was required.
“The PPAP project is timely and represents the single-biggest intervention since the coffee leaf rust eradication programme of the late 1980s,” he said.
“Successful implementation will have a positive impact on the industry.”
Anis said apart from the stagnation in production, other major issues and challenges for the industry included:
• Decline of the estate sector;
• Inconsistent smallholder coffee quality with resultant discount (up to 14%) in the World Market (NY “C”);
• Potential threat of coffee berry borer;
• Rural infrastructure and transport;
• Land tenure issues;
• Coffee theft (cherry); and
• Lack of Investment (growth and production)
Anis said the way forward in production was through mobilisation of smallholder coffee growers as production units (co-operatives); demand-driven research and extension; rehabilitation of all aging senile coffee trees; establishment of nurseries; and expansion into new growth areas.
In marketing, he suggested mobilisation of smallholder coffee growers into co-operatives; promoting marketing systems which revolve around quality and price premiums; and product development for niche market such as product profiling and consistency, certification and branding.
CIC was established under the CIC (Statutory Powers & Functions) Act 1991 and is a company registered under the Companies Act, empowered with state regulatory powers and functions.
It represents a merger of Coffee Industry Board, Coffee Development Agency and Coffee Research Institute.
It has board representation by government (three) and industry (nine) – comprising of smallholders (six), blockholders (one), plantation processors (one) and exporters (one).
CIC get its funding from export levies and other internal revenue, direct national government funding through recurrent and public investment programme, donor agencies, provincial governments and private sector.
Functions are industry regulation; research and extension; and promotion.
Mission is to maximise financial returns to all coffee growers; and contribute towards the government’s economic and social policy goals.
The coffee industry has been “stagnant” for the last 10-15 years and needs to be revived, according to Coffee Industry Corporation chief executive officer Navi Anis.
 |
Coffee Industry Corporation head office in Goroka.-Picture by MALUM NALU
|
Papua New Guinea is one of 60 coffee-producing countries and accounts for 1.1% of world exports, however, has found a niche market as one of the great coffees of the world.
Despite this hibernation, statistics show that coffee remains the single most- important commodity at smallholder level in PNG – ahead of coconut, cocoa, palm oil and rubber - and smallholder coffee growers remain the backbone of the industry, given the decline in the estate (plantation) sector
Anis made no secret about this in an interview after last Tuesday’s launch of the coffee segment of the US$46.3 million Productive Partnerships in Agriculture (PPAP) project at the University of Goroka.
“The industry is stagnant and at its crossroads,” he said.
“It has been for the last 10-15 years.
“It needs a push start.
“This PPAP facility is very timely.”
Anis said to overcome this stagnation, investment in coffee – specifically through rehabilitation and new planting - was required.
“The PPAP project is timely and represents the single-biggest intervention since the coffee leaf rust eradication programme of the late 1980s,” he said.
“Successful implementation will have a positive impact on the industry.”
Anis said apart from the stagnation in production, other major issues and challenges for the industry included:
• Decline of the estate sector;
• Inconsistent smallholder coffee quality with resultant discount (up to 14%) in the World Market (NY “C”);
• Potential threat of coffee berry borer;
• Rural infrastructure and transport;
• Land tenure issues;
• Coffee theft (cherry); and
• Lack of Investment (growth and production)
Anis said the way forward in production was through mobilisation of smallholder coffee growers as production units (co-operatives); demand-driven research and extension; rehabilitation of all aging senile coffee trees; establishment of nurseries; and expansion into new growth areas.
In marketing, he suggested mobilisation of smallholder coffee growers into co-operatives; promoting marketing systems which revolve around quality and price premiums; and product development for niche market such as product profiling and consistency, certification and branding.
CIC was established under the CIC (Statutory Powers & Functions) Act 1991 and is a company registered under the Companies Act, empowered with state regulatory powers and functions.
It represents a merger of Coffee Industry Board, Coffee Development Agency and Coffee Research Institute.
It has board representation by government (three) and industry (nine) – comprising of smallholders (six), blockholders (one), plantation processors (one) and exporters (one).
CIC get its funding from export levies and other internal revenue, direct national government funding through recurrent and public investment programme, donor agencies, provincial governments and private sector.
Functions are industry regulation; research and extension; and promotion.
Mission is to maximise financial returns to all coffee growers; and contribute towards the government’s economic and social policy goals.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Court orders stop on actions against judge
By JULIA DAIA BORE
THE National Court yesterday stopped all police and lower court
actions against a recently appointed acting judge of the National and
Supreme Court, Justice Royale Thompson, The National reports.
She was hauled before the court in a matter which she discharged in
her previous role as a private lawyer acting for a foreign oil tanker,
its contents, ship's captain and its Singaporean owners.
Police alleged that Thompson had wrongly caused an advertisement to be
placed in the newspapers on Jan 14 this year stating that the oil
tanker, UBT Fjord, had not escaped but had lawfully left the country.
The advertisement claimed the UBT Fjord, with its K14 million worth of
oil content, had lawfully left the country; contrary to the state's
claims that it was officially impounded in Simpson's Harbour in Rabaul
pending legal actions against the ship's captain relating to alleged
"stealing" of the oil in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville port of
Loloho.
Yesterday, Justice Catherine Davani said (arresting officer and East
New Britain provincial police commander Sylvester) Kalaut's three
affidavits were "false and misleading information".
"The court must never be used by individuals for their personal
battles," Davani ruled. "Only genuine claims must be filed and
pursued. If the claims are not genuine, they should rightly be stayed
or dismissed or withdrawn or discontinued.
"This case is clearly an abuse of process where the plaintiff was
arrested on charges based on facts known to the police prosecutor, and
whoever lodged the complaint, as being incorrect and false."
Davani also pointed out that "in this case, the plaintiff (Thompson)
is an acting judge of the National Court of PNG. If this case were to
continue, it would seriously prejudice the plaintiff's continued
practice as a judge and will seriously hamper and interfere with her
day-to-day conduct of cases. It will also bring the judiciary into
disrepute.
"As for Supt Kalaut, he will not suffer any harm or repercussions. He
arrested the plaintiff on alleged criminal charges and he is
determined to prosecute these cases to the end," the judge ruled
yesterday.
Following the oil tanker's departure early this year, Kalaut flew to
Port Moresby and arrested Thompson on April 1.
Kalaut claimed that the placement of the advertisement had amounted to
an act of "perverting the course of justice".
Davani ruled in essence that the entire events leading up to the
arrest was an "abuse of process" and her final orders stated:
*The information signed by Kalaut were permanently stayed as an abuse
of process;
*The first defendant (Kalaut) shall pay the whole cost of the
proceedings, to be taxed, if not agreed;
*Bail monies of K2,000 paid by the plaintiff (Thompson) on April 1
were refunded to her, forthwith; and
*Either party was at liberty to apply, on three days notice to each
other; and time is abridged to time of settlement to take place
forthwith.
Prior to this decision, the two daily newspapers were barred by a
court order from publishing all matters pertaining to the case.
Mob defends Wararu
Cop car damaged, detective assaulted by Sepik villagers
AN attempt by police to arrest East Sepik Governor Peter Wararu in
Wewak yesterday turned nasty when an angry mob from his electorate
chased away policemen and hurled missiles at the vehicle smashing all
its windows, The National reports.
Consequently, a local police detective, investigating a series of
allegations against the East Sepik governor, was assaulted and hit
with the end of a bush knife and lost consciousness.
Police last night said police detective Ron Poki was nursing wounds at
his Wewak home.
Poki was on his way to meet Wararu when he was allegedly stopped and assaulted.
The detective and two others, believed to be his colleagues, left the
vehicle at Haniak village and escaped on foot while the vehicle was
worked on by angry villagers.
The vehicle was about to be set ablaze when Nongori village ward
member Benedict Poriefi intervened and had it moved to his village for
safe-keeping.
Acting Police Commissioner Anthony Wagambie last night confirmed the
incident in Wewak.
"The detective was investigating allegations against the governor; the
people's actions were uncalled for."
Wagambie said: "The officer was badly beaten and lost consciousness."
The National, however, was told by the villagers that they were angry
after receiving information that Wararu, who is Yangoru-Saussia MP,
was going to be arrested and charged at 5pm yesterday.
The arrest, they said, would mean a stop-work on a vital road project
from Tangori to other isolated villages in the Numbo and East Yangoru
LLGs.
After receiving information of Wararu's impending arrest, the people
were about to drive down to Wewak to witness his arrest at 5pm when
they saw a police 10-seater Landcruiser, believed to be that of former
East Sepik police chief Snr Insp Charles Parinjo, heading in their
direction.
Wagambie said the police vehicle was damaged with the policeman's
personal belongings, including a laptop and confidential documents,
removed.
Local Haniak villagers last night also confirmed the incident.
They said the police detective was hit on the side of his head with
the back of a bush knife and lost consciousness.
"The personal items must be returned immediately to the rightful
owner," Wagambie warned last night.
The East Sepik governor met a huge crowd, mostly men, at Tangori
police station last night after the women and children had returned
home and urged them not to take the law into their own hands.
He told supporters outside the police station that he had been
informed that he was going to be arrested after Parinjo, but did not
know the reason.
Wararu said if he had committed a crime, then he should be called in
by police for a record of interview and not to be treated like a
common criminal as he was a leader.
The governor said his electorate had witnessed minimal development in
the last six years because of continuous court challenges.
He said with only 12 months away from the next elections, he wanted to
bring progress his electorate by building roads and other
infrastructure development.
"There should be no hindrances caused by intending candidates or
police politics," Wararu told his people last night.
He also attributed the arrest of Parinjo and his planned arrest to a
recent incident involving Michael Somare Jnr.
The governor also expressed dissatisfaction at the acting police
commissioner's direction for his men to arrest politicians.
Wararu said he would join other MPs to ask Prime Minister Sir Michael
Somare to have Wagambie removed from the top cop job.
Meanwhile, Parinjo was last night escorted by West Sepik provincial
police commander Tobby Hamago and his men to Vanimo for his court
hearing on Monday.
East Sepik PPC Vincent Pokas was understood to be out of the province
and could not be reached for comments.
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