Crop diseases hit Madang

THE cocoa pod borer and the Bogia coconut syndrome have struck Madang, threatening efforts by the Kokonas Industri Koporesen (KIK) and the Cocoa and Coconut Institute (CCI) for the province to be the leading cocoa and coconut exporters, The National reports.

KIK and CCI chairman Sir Makena Geno last week told of the re-emergence of the diseases on Karkar and the other five districts.

Sir Makena was in the province for the launch of the cocoa coconut improvement project and the presentation of five sawmills to five vocational schools – Karkar, Danip, Talidik, Ramu and Simbai.

He said the two diseases would be destructive if serious networking between educational institutions, business houses, civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations and stakeholders did not exist.

Extending an invitation for these bodies to join in the fight, Sir Arnold Amet gave K1.32 million for the provision of 2,000,000 cocoa trees and 100,000 coconut trees to be provided by CCI and KIK under a memorandum of agreement signed that day.

Sir Makeno, in accepting the K500,000 cheque for seedlings and nursery materials to be provided with technical expertise for interested  farmers in the six districts, said these two pressing issues would now be their main focus.

He said his area of concern would be to eradicate these diseases before “it kills the industry as well as the growers’ interest”.

Of the money, K250,000 will be for a coconut mill at Murunas; K500,000 for cocoa seeds; K125,000 each for the two new 10-seater vehicles, one for the police and the other for monitoring the projects by the provincial government.

Through this MoA, the Madang government aims to raise an annual export of K16 million, at K8,000 per tonne with a target population of 48,000 people to be impacted by the cocoa and coconut improvement programme.

He said K820,000 had been spent to get the five sawmills to be set up at the vocational schools with training to be provided for locals under the technical vocational education training.

Service to the nation

Policewoman Maureen Undaba was among more than 100 people recognised for their services to Papua New Guinea at this year's Order of the PNG New Year awards investiture ceremony held at Government House yesterday, The National reports. 

It was also Governor-General Sir Michael Ogio's first official investiture engage  ment since he was sworn into office.

Undaba was recognised for her services to law and justice.

Former Catholic archbishop of Port Moresby Sir Brian Barnes, former politician Sir Akepa Miakwe from  Unggai-Bena in Eastern Highlands and Madang businessman and former politician Sir Peter Barter were also among those awarded.

 

Nautilus to raise US$153.32mil for Solwara-1

CANADA's Nautilus Minerals intends to raise US$153.2 million for its deep-water polymetallic mining operation for its Solwara-1 project in the Bismarck Sea through a public offering of shares, The National reports.

The planned offering would be conducted through a syndicate of underwriters led by TD Securities Inc and Credit Cuisse Securities Inc, Nautilus said.

The company said proceeds from the offering would be used to fund the development of the Solwara-1 copper-gold project.

Proceeds would also be used to fund the company's equity contribution associated with the production-support vessel joint venture agreement, and for general working purposes, Nautilus said.

The offering is expected to raise gross proceeds of approximately C$150 million.

The company also will grant the underwriters an  over-allotment option to purchase up to that number of additional common shares equal to 15% of the common shares sold pursuant to the offering.

The option will be exercisable for a period of 30 days following closing of the offer.

The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to fund the development of the Solwara-1 project, to fund the company's equity contribution associated with the production support vessel joint venture

agreement and for general corporate purposes.

Final pricing of the offering will be determined in the context of the market prior to the filing of the final short form prospectus.

Nautilus said the common shares would be offered in all provinces of Canada except Quebec by way of a short form prospectus and other jurisdictions outside of Canada pursuant to applicable private placement exemptions.

Our money woes

PAC takes govt to task over public accounts

 

By FRANK SENGE KOLMA

 

PARLIAMENT was yesterday asked to declare that there are no public accounts for 2007, The National reports.

The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) made the recommendation after it found that the records of financial receipts and expenditures for that year were "unreliable, incomplete and not based on proper records or accounts".

This state of collapse persisted across the entire public sector in 2008 and, despite slight improvements in 2009, the condition persisted last year and in the first four months this year, the PAC reported.

The three reports tabled yesterday, covering 2007, 2008 and 2009, were scathing and pointed. No department, provincial government and national agency or entity was spared.

Treasury and Finance Minister Peter O'Neill described the reports as "embarrassing".

O'Neill said this after PAC chairman Martin Aini presented the reports.

"It is quite embarrassing. We all know of the systematic breakdown in the public service and it is a matter that the government is addressing," O'Neill said.

"We will take the PAC recommendations very seriously and we will deal with certain officers implicated in the report."

The following was typical language throughout the reports tabled yesterday:  "Corporate governance remains poor, internal controls are weak or non-existent, accounting is poor or failed, financial statements remain unavailable, accountability and transparency are poor, reconciliation of internal finances is poor or non-existent and staff competence and resourcing of a majority of entities is inadequate.

"The situation with trust accounts is no better.

"By 2007, the public service had illegally assumed unfettered power and discretion over the use and application of trust monies regardless of appropriations in many instances."

It had become so that parliament had been asked to exert its authority over the entire public sector to return fiscal discipline and accountability by censuring departmental heads, chief accounting officers and to dissolve and restructure the entire Department of Finance.

Presenting the reports, Aini said: "The committee rejects the public accounts of PNG for the financial year 2007 as unreliable, incomplete, misleading, untimely and of limited value to users.

"This is a serious finding and one that requires immediate address by parliament."

The auditor-general, whose constitutional role was to inquire into and report on all public accounts, had disclaimed the public accounts for the same year.

Among others, Aini said his committee had found that:

*Monies had been spent in excess of the appropriation limit or without valid appropriation;

*Monies were spent in breach of the constitution;

*Cheques where backdated to the previous financial year;

*Constitutional requirements were ignored;

*Entire departments were incapable of reconciling their own small internal back accounts for years;

*Huge and illegal cash advances were made to officers;

*There existed no accounting manuals, no performance plans and reports; and

*Heads of departments and senior public servants were untrained, ignorant of their duties and were incompetent and in many cases immune to the operation of the law.

This indictment on public accounts and records on the handling of money continued into 2008 where, in addition to national departments, provincial governments and local level governments, hospital boards' business arms and statutory corporations and all provincial authorities were also found to be non-existent and unreliable and incomplete.

This state of affairs pervaded at the district level where the government's popular district services improvement programme (DSIP) funds had been distributed.

The PAC reported "slight improvement" in the making, keeping and submission of accounts in 2009 but, for the most part, the overall management and recording of transactions with public monies, property and stores "remain poor and failed in many cases".

Asset lists did not exist so it was difficult to keep track of what was owned by the state.

Aini said: "These failures have resulted in deteriorating services to our people and a failed system of delivering development to our citizens.

They are also matters of

profound national embarrassment.

"These failings continue to the present time, unaddressed.

"The committee has tabled 20 reports to this house with similar findings and detailed recommendations, yet, they have not been debated or considered."

O’Neill: Reports embarrassing

TREASURY and Finance Minister Peter O'Neill described the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee report to parliament yesterday as "embarrassing", The National reports.

O'Neill said this after PAC chairman Martin Aini presented its report.

"It is quite embarrassing. We all know of the systematic breakdown in the public service and it is a matter that the government is addressing," O'Neill said.

"We will take the PAC recommendations very seriously and we will deal with certain officers implicated in the report."

He said the national government was updating the public government accounting system, had transferred all trust accounts back to the Central Bank and was strengthening the internal audit for checks and balances.

O'Neill said the report cited serious cases of mismanagement and clear breaches of the Public Finance (Management) Act.

"We have disciplined one or two officers already to show that this government is serious in weeding out mismanagement of funds," he said

"This government is taking pro-active action and we will take all the recommendations and address them one by one," O'Neill said.

50% free education for primary schools

By ISAAC NICHOLAS

 

PARENTS can now breathe a sigh of relief after Education Minister James Marape announced the national government's intention to pay the first six months of school fees for students attending primary schools next year, The National reports.

Marape said during question time in parliament that it was the current government's policy on school fee subsidy beginning with free education for elementary schools from 2008 up to now.

"This year, the national government allocated K178 million for school fee subsidy which is in line with the government policy to give 100% access to basic education."

Marape said the policy towards 2013 was 100% school fee subsidy for elementary to primary schools.

"One of the fundamental reasons parents are not sending their children to school is school fees and this will complement the universal basic education policy."

Marape said the national government was responsible to help parents with school fees.

"By next year, the first half of the primary school year will be free," Marape said.

He said this in response to Enga Governor Peter Ipatas who said to succeed any nation must develop its human resources.

"The national government has rightly put resources into the education sector ... we must not compromise quality education for our children."

Ipatas said in Enga the provincial government had subsidised education for the past 12 years.

He commended the minister for his initiative but asked that the national government subsidy for elementary be worked out between the province and the department to ensure "there are no conflicting policies".

Marape said if there were parallel programmes in provinces "resources can be shifted to focus on school materials, infrastructure and library books".

High prices and increased coffee production: double blessing or double trouble?

By DAVID RUMBARUMA

General Manager

Awute Coffee Producers

 

This year the coffee industry is doubly blessed with a 14-year high coffee price and a huge crop never seen for many years.

These blessings are literally very good for the multitude of the coffee growers and many small village-based ground buyers.

Many of them have never ever held in their hands a thousand Kina at any one time in their lives.

This year, once in their lifetime they are able to hold a thousand kina.

What they do with such volume of cash is none of my business but it would be good for them to use wisely to improve their lives, solve many of their daily problems and social obligations, then, save some for the future.

But as is always the case during coffee season, many will turn to squander coffee money on alcohol and gambling.

 With these will come many social and community problems and thus, left with nothing to show by the end of the coffee season.   

 On the other hand, this dual blessing is already turning into nightmare for the middlemen who are the big coffee buyers: the processors and the exporters.

To them, these blessings are in fact curses. 

Prices are more than twice that paid for a kilo of coffee around this time of the year in 2010.

One has to spend more than twice the amount to buy same quantity of coffee.

 Already the increase in coffee production this year is putting a lot of pressure on the availability of funds and the processing capacities of many processing mills.

Banks in Goroka, Kundiawa and Mt. Hagen are running out of liquid cash very quickly and the risks involved in moving huge amount of hard cash around is costing more money too. 

These are readily transferred as added cost to the coffee stakeholders.

 Not only are those, the banks already putting minimum limits to how much each client can withdraw at any one time.

This too is having a negative effect going down to the growers. 

 Processors and buyers cannot get enough to do business resulting in many issuing credit receipts.

 All these combined to make doing business in coffee very difficult for the coffee buyers and processors.

Then again, there are big volume buyers who depend on stand-alone coffee processing facilities to process their parchment coffee into green beans for sale.

This lot of operators depends on each other for mutual benefit in the industry but many of these facilities have old processing machineries that cannot service everyone properly and on time.

 These machineries are working full steam non-stop seven days a week and are due to burst anytime. The cue is very long and valuable time is wasted.

The buyers are under pressure to deliver coffee to exporters from whom they got cash advances to buy coffee.

The multi-national coffee exporters are and have been acting as the banks for the coffee industry. They in turn are faced with the mammoth task of forking out more than twice the amount of money into the industry this year.

 They too are already feeling the pressure.

This year sees the demise of national aspiration for localising coffee export.

 The national coffee export companies are finding it extremely difficult to trade and few successful medium-sized exporters are already foregoing export and are selling locally to the big multinationals.

This in fact is a step backwards and signals a very sad turning point in the life of the coffee industry. Papua New Guinean companies are finding the going very tough and cannot maintain the pace year in year out anymore without government and the bank support.

Such financial and management problems in companies only become very obvious during such a time of high prices and bumper crop. 

Coffee processing capacity of the industry is now being tested.

 Enga, Western Highlands, Southern Highlands, Chimbu, Morobe and Madang do not have the capacity to process their respective production, while Eastern Highlands has, but the fact is in coffee business most of unprocessed coffee from these provinces are brought into Goroka and Kainantu to be sold. These are already putting excessive pressure on the number of coffee processing facilities in Eastern Highlands.

We have a big quality problem waiting to happen.

If it does, it will kill many businesses and destroy PNG's high standing on the world coffee market.

The danger of the highly distasteful chemical taint (Rio Flavor) reoccurrence this coffee season can not be ruled out in coffees from those areas known to have these problems before.

Here, Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) must be very vigilant in, to ensure that its quality laws are adhered to by the licensees and the coffee buyers and processors.

CIC coffee inspectors, extension officers and scientists must ensure Rio Flavor does not pop up again. Measures must be taken now to ensure that it does not happen, because if it does, it will definitely:

(1)   Mean buyers will refuse to buy our coffee as experienced a decade ago;

(2)   Quality rating of PNG coffee will be destroyed that it will be very hard regain; and,

(3)   We will lose many good buyers who will be very difficult to get back later. 

The industry should be concerned that the highly-sophisticated chemical analysis laboratory funded by European Union and built in Lae in early 2000 for the purpose of carrying out analysis and research on the chemical taint in coffee has gone to the rats, so to speak,  and are now of no value.

This asset belongs to the stakeholders, therefore,  the facilities must be brought back to function and be put to use as safeguard against this potential quality threat by Rio Flavor.

Finally, companies and businesses involved in coffee that are not careful in their activities will find out by the end of the year that they made huge loses instead of profit.

 The danger is great and it is in one's interest to take measures to ensure that sound business decisions and acceptable industry quality practices are employed from the outset to protect themselves to make profit and in doing so also play a responsible role in protecting our industry as a whole against such problems and we can continue to enjoy the high prices that will remain for a long time yet. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then again, there are big volume buyers who depend on stand-alone coffee processing facilities to process their parchment coffee into green beans for sale.

This lot of operators depends on each other for mutual benefit in the industry but many of these facilities have old processing machineries that cannot service everyone properly and on time.

 These machineries are working full steam non-stop seven days a week and are due to burst anytime. The cue is very long and valuable time is wasted.

The buyers are under pressure to deliver coffee to exporters from whom they got cash advances to buy coffee.

The multi-national coffee exporters are and have been acting as the banks for the coffee industry. They in turn are faced with the mammoth task of forking out more than twice the amount of money into the industry this year.

 They too are already feeling the pressure.

This year sees the demise of national aspiration for localising coffee export.

 The national coffee export companies are finding it extremely difficult to trade and few successful medium-sized exporters are already foregoing export and are selling locally to the big multinationals.

This in fact is a step backwards and signals a very sad turning point in the life of the coffee industry. Papua New Guinean companies are finding the going very tough and cannot maintain the pace year in year out anymore without government and the bank support.

Such financial and management problems in companies only become very obvious during such a time of high prices and bumper crop. 

Coffee processing capacity of the industry is now being tested.

 Enga, Western Highlands, Southern Highlands, Chimbu, Morobe and Madang do not have the capacity to process their respective production, while Eastern Highlands has, but the fact is in coffee business most of unprocessed coffee from these provinces are brought into Goroka and Kainantu to be sold. These are already putting excessive pressure on the number of coffee processing facilities in Eastern Highlands.

We have a big quality problem waiting to happen.

If it does, it will kill many businesses and destroy PNG's high standing on the world coffee market.

The danger of the highly distasteful chemical taint (Rio Flavor) reoccurrence this coffee season can not be ruled out in coffees from those areas known to have these problems before.

Here, Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) must be very vigilant in, to ensure that its quality laws are adhered to by the licensees and the coffee buyers and processors.

CIC coffee inspectors, extension officers and scientists must ensure Rio Flavor does not pop up again. Measures must be taken now to ensure that it does not happen, because if it does, it will definitely:

(1)   Mean buyers will refuse to buy our coffee as experienced a decade ago;

(2)   Quality rating of PNG coffee will be destroyed that it will be very hard regain; and,

(3)   We will lose many good buyers who will be very difficult to get back later. 

The industry should be concerned that the highly-sophisticated chemical analysis laboratory funded by European Union and built in Lae in early 2000 for the purpose of carrying out analysis and research on the chemical taint in coffee has gone to the rats, so to speak,  and are now of no value.

This asset belongs to the stakeholders, therefore,  the facilities must be brought back to function and be put to use as safeguard against this potential quality threat by Rio Flavor.

Finally, companies and businesses involved in coffee that are not careful in their activities will find out by the end of the year that they made huge loses instead of profit.

 The danger is great and it is in one's interest to take measures to ensure that sound business decisions and acceptable industry quality practices are employed from the outset to protect themselves to make profit and in doing so also play a responsible role in protecting our industry as a whole against such problems and we can continue to enjoy the high prices that will remain for a long time yet.