Sir Arnold hits out at court ruling

By JEFFREY ELAPA

 

ATTORNEY-General and Minister for Justice Sir Arnold Amet has described the Supreme Court decision to suspend two government ministers as unethical, unjurisdictional and inappropriate, The National reports.

Sir Arnold criticised the Supreme Court decision to view the cases of Patrick Pruaitch and Arthur Somare to be the same as Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare's.

"This is unethical, unjurisdictional and inappropriate.

"The party to that case was Sir Michael and that had no­thing to do with Patrick and Arthur," he said.

He said Sir Michael had the constitutional right and was at liberty to challenge the case in court whether as the country's leader or as an ordinary citizen.

However, he said ethically, the two ministers were not given an opportunity to be heard.

He said there were three different Supreme Court decisions.

The first ruling was to suspend Pruaitch as soon as he was referred by the public prosecutor, the second was when he was granted leave to take up office while waiting for a tribunal to be set up and, the third, was when Pruaitch and Arthur were suspended.

However, he said there had been inconsistencies when a three-man Supreme Court bench over-ruled ano­ther Supreme Court ruling.

Sir Arnold said that the rulings were differently constituted and was inconsistent in the process of law.   

However, he said he was looking at the possibility of getting a higher Supreme Court review to look at the issues of inconsistencies in the ruling.

The higher Supreme Court review would have to be a five- or seven-man bench with the powers to over-rule the decisions of a three-man bench.

He said the chief justice had been asked to set up a higher court and was in the process of doing that.

 

 

Family okays plan to assess PM’s health

By JEFFREY ELAPA

 

THE government has consulted the family of Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare to allow two selected doctors to report on his health condition, The National reports.

Attorney-General and Justice Minister Sir Arnold Amet told a media conference that Sir Michael's doctor, Isi Kevau, had met with the National Executive Council to discuss the process allowing two appointed medical doctors to assess Sir Michael's condition.

"As respect for the Grand Chief, the family has to be consulted first before the assessment process, as required under the constitution, is followed," he said.

Sir Arnold, accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Ano Pala and Public Service Minister Moses Maladina and other members, said discussions with the Somare family had been positive.

He said it meant that the head of state could go ahead and ask the PNG Medical Board to appoint two practising doctors to go to Singapore to, in consultation with doctors at the hospital, assess the prime minister's condition.

He said the doctors had 28 days to complete the report and forward it to the head of state.

He said if the report indicated that Sir Michael could not resume duties within three months, then the head of state would inform the speaker to convene parliament and elect a new prime minister.

He said if the report concluded otherwise, the head of state would not need to inform parliament.

Sir Michael's son, Arthur, had revealed two weeks ago that the family wanted to retire the Grand Chief to allow him time to recover at his own pace.

However, Sir Michael is required by law to formally and personally make known his intention to step down from office.

Sir Michael is reportedly out of his hospital bed and walking a few steps each day with assistance, and speaking to those around him.

On Monday this week, he was visited at the hospital by Fiji's interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who is the current head of the Melanesian Spearhead Group of which PNG is a member.

Lae is on the road to nowhere

By MALUM NALU
Morobe Governor Luther Wenge, true to style, opened up a can of worms with a savage attack on regional works manager Brian Alois in The National on Monday this week.
The grand Songang and his right hand man, Lae-based Highlands businessman Peter Honale, condemned a Weekender article in this paper last Friday which criticised the state of roads in Lae.
He said the article, based on information provided by Alois, was a setback to efforts by the national and provincial contractors to get rid of potholes on Lae roads for many years.
Wenge, however, miserably failed to see that Alois has the support of so many people in Lae and Papua New Guinea, judging by the number of phone calls and emails I received.
Just last December, acting Prime Minister Sam Abal dished out more than K100 million to a handful of contractors to fix up Lae roads, however, cracks are already appearing in the concrete and water is spilling out from drains

Truck along Markham Road, opposite Lae Showground. Concrete here is already cracking.-Pictures by MALUM NALU

Contractors are working willy-nilly on their assigned stretches, in an unplanned, haphazard fashion, and there seems to be no uniformity all over the city.



Cracks already appearing in the concrete along Markham Road opposite Lae Showground.

 Compare that to a decade ago when AusAid-funded Barclay worked on the Lae roads?
The Department of Finance, seemingly, has appointed overseas contractor NME International as its engineering supervising consultant for Lae roads with no input whatsoever from Department of Works.
Alois and the works guys, even the city engineer, have no say whatsoever in the Lae roads project.

Project signboard along the hill leading up to town.Works Department and Lae City Council, however, have no say in the project.

“I am not against concrete roads and I believe they are great,” he explains.
“But I do not believe it is the solution for our roads here in Lae.
“We have not exhausted the other methods and importantly, we do not have specifications for concrete roads here in PNG, let alone specification for maintenance of concrete roads.
“The K100m allocation is a lot of money and given the fact that Lae has just over 140km of road length, this money if applied through approved processes using conventional and improved designs, can transform close of 50% of these roads.
“That concrete section done earlier in front of Admin Compound is going, and falling apart, after five years!
“Take a drive down there and take a closer look, there are cracks everywhere and that is not a good sign.

Huon Road between Town and Eriku, the first concrete road in Lae, commissioned by Morobe Governor Luther Wenge. Concrete is already cracking.

“Furthermore, surface run‐offs from the newly-constructed section done by Dekenai will flow down and water will seep into those cracks in the concrete and sooner or later, there will be differential settlement between the individual concrete sections and that would be catastrophic; it is already happening – try driving at over 60kph and you will feel the undulations.
“The surface texture is also fading and like I said before, maintenance is near difficult.”
Alois has observed a number of faults in the current Lae road works.
“Firstly, all the designs are different and each contractor has its own,” he said.
“The consultant was supposed to do the design and pass it onto the contractor, instead the contractors did the design and requests approval from the consultant.
“This is a terrible joke!
“Secondly, I do not believe any traffic survey/count was done on the sections of the roads before the contractors started their works.
“How do the contractors know the volume and type of traffic that uses the road?
“Assumptions again, that is bad, very bad.
“Roads are designed to carry axial loadings and that can only be calculated from traffic counts.
“Thirdly, we are removing the pavement material by digging down onto the sub-grade and after that we are replacing with concrete.
“If we are going to build concrete, it would be wise to build on solid foundations and not on weaker material.
“Take a drive around and you will see what I mean and worse still, the beddings were not sufficiently compacted – we are building on loose materials too!

Driving down the steep Huon Road Hill, a lesson in how not to build roads.

“Apart from planning and classification of roads to match traffic, traffic management during construction is also an essential element especially when we are working in town where there is significant volume of traffic.
“Without this, there will always be chaos and I do not need to comment any more on this.”
Alois said at the completion of the first Lae roads project back in 2001, AusAID funded a comprehensive study that recommended two important elements for Lae City Council and the Morobe provincial administration to implement before any future funding could be considered: Construct various drainage outfalls from the previous works; and provide continuous funding for routine maintenance.
“Two drainage outfalls were constructed and these were (i) Bumbu A (near the main wharf, old Ai Gris Market) and (ii) Marsina (adjacent to the cement factory),” he said.
“The Didiman Creek (running down the old airfield) was also lined.
“Now the only reason why extensive work was done to improve the Didiman Creek was to cater for future drainage to feed into it.
“A purposely-constructed spillway was built for overflows from the Raun Wara. There are seven other drainage outfalls that need construction and unless this is done, run‐offs from our roads will have no facility to assist in the discharge.
“So basically, all these water and those from the buildings/houses just simply flow around until they eventually seep into the ground, hence the reason why the soil under us is water‐logged.”
Then there’s the issue of provision of continuous funding for routine maintenance.
“We have seen the result of negligence and it is not going to help us if we do not cater for routine maintenance year‐in year‐out,” Alois said.
“The roads previously reconstructed are beginning to fall apart right before our eyes and we have not even made any attempt to repair them.
“Those small cracks have widened and potholes have emerged simply because we have not attended to them while they are still small.
“Culverts are blocked and during heavy rain, they overflow onto the road and that contributes to rapid pavement deterioration.”

Wife-bashing cop dismissed

CONSTABLE Simon Bernard, who was at the centre of media attention last December over the torture of his wife, Joy Wartovo, was dismissed from the police force on June 27, The National reports.

Police investigators found that:

*On Dec 7 last year, at the Gordon police singles barracks in NCD, Bernard tortured his wife, causing severe injuries to her body by using a hammer, an axe, pliers and hot iron by cutting her fingers and burning her on her left arm and left leg;

*Bernard acted in a manner that was prejudicial to good order and discipline in the force; and

*On Dec 21 last year, in Port Moresby, Bernard acted in a manner that discredited the force by being featured in a media report on his continuous beating and torture of his wife.

Police said no written explanation was received from Bernard.

"While he did not submit any explanation, the evidence produced by state witnesses, including photographs of the injuries sustained by Wartovo, showed clearly that he did commit the offences of family and sexual violence against his wife."

Bernard was found to have breached the police commissioner's circular No.06/2007 in relation to family and sexual violence.

Police said Bernard's dismissal "is intended to serve as a deterrent penalty".

 

 

Kina value up against US dollar

FOR the first time since April, Papua New Guinea's currency kina, has increased its value against the US dollar, The National reports.

On average, K1 could now buy US$0.43, compared to previous months' daily exchange rates.

Central Bank Governor Loi Bakani explained in the bank's first quarter report that the kina's average daily exchange rates have continued to appreciate against the US dollar, UK pound sterling and the euro, but have been depreciating against the Australian dollar and Japanese yen.

By June 27, the local currency had reached a high of US$0.4330 and A$0.4154.

This means the kina had appreciated against the US dollar by 2.9% to 0.3895, pound sterling by 5.0% to .02419, and euro by 11.2% to 0.2753.

It depreciated against the Australian dollar by 6.9% to 0.3770 and Japanese yen by 5.6% to 32.2400.

The report said that the increase of the kina value was due to the high inflow of foreign exchange, associated with the mineral tax receipts for the government and high commodity export earnings.

This was brought on by the high prices set by the international demand for mineral and agricultural exports, resulting in 21.5% increase in the weighted average kina price of mineral exports.

The weighted average kina price of agricultural, logs and marine product exports increased by 31.1% and was attributed to higher kina prices of cocoa, coffee, copra oil, palm oil rubber and marine products.

Meanwhile, the report said the level of gross foreign exchange reserves had increased from K7,982.9 million at the end of March to K8,441.4 million as of last month.

The increase was also attributed to the high mineral tax receipts made in foreign exchange.

The economy's continued growth during the first quarter was supported by business sales, private sector employment, private sector credit and higher prices and production of most agricultural and mineral export commodities.

 

 

Abal confident of advice by AG

ACTING Prime Minister Sam Abal is confident of the advice provided to the government by Attorney-General and Justice Minister Sir Arnold Amet and his department, The National reports.

He said the advice given by Sir Arnold "is based on his experience as a former top lawyer and chief justice and cheap politics should not be used to degrade his integrity".

Abal was responding to a call by the opposition for Sir Arnold to be sacked for poorly advising the government on major issues of contention.

Opposition leader Belden Namah claimed "so many blunders are costing taxpayers millions of kina on legal advice provided to the government and parliament".

He said such advice had resulted in the government and speaker "jointly destroying the independence of parliament".

But Abal said Westminster parliamentary democracy "allows for freedom of expression and opinion and, of course, it caters for the opposition and its role in bringing issues and opinions before government".

While he had no issue with that, Abal said: "What I take issue with is their ability to allow their sly and cheap gutter political motives to engage, yet again, on a personality hunt.

"Sir Arnold is no doubt a man of integrity and public standing.

"He has been PNG's outstanding lawyer and has risen in much of his public life to the post of chief justice of PNG.

"He is a renowned and eminent jurist and scholar of the Commonwealth prior to him becoming a member of parliament.

"The people of Madang recognised this fully and gave him the mandate to serve them as servant leader in parliament.

" With full cognisance of his outstanding professional background and personal achievements, and contributions to legal policy development towards the progress of this nation, Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, as prime minister, had full and total confidence in him and appointed him as attorney-general and justice minister in his cabinet.

"He is one of the PNG's proud knights in shining armour, someone we all must show goodwill and respect to.

"Many of us aspire to be like him. Not many of us can be like him.

"There is no reason for such a cheap, gutter and childish call by the opposition for Sir Arnold to resign from cabinet simply on narrow assertion that his advice to cabinet should all the time be true and correct in law," Abal said.

 

MP asks tribunal for time to travel

By SAMUEL RAITANO

 

THE Leadership Tribunal will decide today whether to allow suspended Angoram MP Arthur Somare the time he needs to obtain the information from his electorate required for the hearing, The National reports.

On Monday, Somare's lawyer Kerenga Kua said his client had a total of 105 allegations made against him.

He said the Ombudsman Commission had also claimed that Somare had facilitated 57 cheques to the recipients in Angoram.

He said the issuing and use of those cheques were matters to be raised at the tribunal.

But the time  they were  requesting was what they needed  to travel to East Sepik and talk to the  reci­pients.

Kua said that Angoram was a vast electorate with the recipients of the cheques scattered along the Sepik River and its numerous tributaries.

This is why they needed more time to travel there and obtain the needed information.

On Monday, the public prosecutor's office had submitted the necessary documents needed by the tribunal to start the hearing.

 Initially on Monday, both parties had asked the tribunal for a month's adjournment on the grounds that both parties needed time to file the necessary documents for thee hearing.

But on Monday afternoon, after a brief adjournment, the public pro­secutor's lawyer, Katua Umpake, told the tribunal that he had the ne­cessary documents to start the hearing.

The documents were the statement of reasons from the Ombudsman Commission and the statement of charges from the public prosecutor.

This triggered the Organic Law provision which required that So­mare be suspended immediately.

The three-man tribunal will comprise chairman Justice Salatiel Lenalia, and  magistrates Orim Karapo and Noreen Kanasa.

The ruling  today will determine if Somare will be allowed time to visit and talk to the recipients in his electorate.