Cases against government thrown out

By JEFFREY ELAPA

THE court proceeding taken against the Prime Minister Peter O'Neill and his deputy Belden Namah by the former forest minister Timothy Bonga and national president of the National Alliance party Simon Kaiwi has been withdrawn, The National reports.
The parties named in the proceeding were O'Neill, Belden Namah, Bulolo MP Sam Basil, Hagen MP William Duma, Speaker Jeffery Nape and Attorney- General Dr Allan Marat.
O'Neill told reporters that Bonga and Kaiwi filed a notice to withdraw the Supreme Court judicial reference last Tuesday but the reason for the withdrawal had not been made known.
Court documents were filed at the court registry last week and the matter is expected to be withdrawn officially in court today.
Late last week, O'Neill said: "So far there is no case before my government after the previous Supreme and National court references by Abal have been thrown out.
"It was obvious that 70 members have supported me for a change of government, therefore, there was no need for any court cases," he said.
However, when asked about another court proceeding taken by the East Sepik provincial executive council for a judicial constitutional reference,  O'Neill said he was never served any copy of the proceeding and, therefore, he was not aware of it.
He said he only learnt of it in the media.
But to date he was satisfied that there was no pending case against his government after the two previous supreme court interpretation proceedings had been thrown out.
He said his ministers were starting to settle into their new ministries and he was confident all would go well in the next nine months.
He said his government was serious about addressing corruption and maintaining good governance.
Meanwhile on the issue of the Manus asylum seekers detention centre, O'Neill said the NEC had approved the request by the Australian government.
He said a delegation will be flying into PNG to talk about setting up the centre and signing a memorandum of agreement.
He said as a signatory to the Bali agreement on human smuggling, PNG had to work with neighbouring countries like Australia to counter human and drug-smuggling as a security issue in the region.

Parkop slams Manus plan

NCD Governor Powes Parkop has reiterated his opposition to the deal to send Australia's asylum seekers to Manus Island, saying it is illegal and unconstitutional, Radio Australia reported, The National reports.
Parkop, a human rights lawyer who is from Manus, told the Australian broadcaster last Friday that he would challenge the Manus plan in court.
The cabinet of Prime Minister Peter O'Neill agreed last Thursday to re-open the Manus detention centre to accept asylum seekers from Australia.
This prompted his Australian counterpart Julia Gillard to announce that a memorandum of understanding with PNG on the centre would be signed soon.
However, Parkop, a key player in changing government on Aug 2, told Radio Australia people could only be detained in PNG if they had been charged with a criminal offence.
Australia said the fa­cility on Manus would be a processing centre but the governor said if people were locked up it was illegal.
"That can open the floodgates for, you know, police or migration here to put anybody in detention," he said, adding that he was prepared to go to court.
Parkop told Radio Australia: "I think it's not right that Australia keeps on passing this problem to its neighbouring (countries such as) PNG and Nauru and now Malaysia.
"Not just (immoral) but improper for them to flaunt their international obligation by coming up with these schemes."
It also quoted Australia's immigration minister Chris Bowen as saying it would be several weeks before the centre was up and running.
Australian refugee groups have condemned the agreement, saying asylum seekers would not get the treatment they needed on Manus.
Australia's parliamentary secretary for Pacific island affairs Richard Marles said the asylum seekers would be treated with respect.
"We will be approach­ing this issue in a way which makes sure that those people who are transferred to Manus Island are dealt with in dignity and
as efficiently as possible," he told Radio Australia.
"That will be the underlying principle behind the way in which we deal with the individuals who go there."

13 die in related accidents

By PISAI GUMAR
THIRTEEN people died instantly within 30 hours at the same location in two road accidents at Sasiang Farm in Morobe, The National reports.

The semi-trailer and truck after last Saturday's accident.-Nationalpics by PISAE GUMAR

A closer view of the truck crushed under the semi-trailer

When the Lae Fire Brigade was contacted after the second accident, seven officers led by chief provincial fire com­mander Alphonse Aime rushed to the scene of the accident.
But, on their way at a sharp corner past Erap Bridge, the two front tyres of the fire truck blew.
The fire truck veered off the road and overturned, with Aime and another officer suffering injuries to the head, shoulder and arms.
In the initial accident, the PMV Coaster was on its way to Lae from Mt Hagen when it collided with a KK & Sons semi-trailer.
The Dyna truck was returning from Madang when it, too, ploughed head-on into the semi-trailer left by the roadside.
Mutzing health staff said five people from the PMV died instantly with the others suffering severe body injuries and were taken to the Angau Memorial Hospital.
First Const David Waiko from Mutzing police, who attended the first accident, said he had asked the truck owner to remove the vehicle and trailer.
But the police instructions were ignored with the trailer left on the highway for a day and two nights. 
The second accident occurred in the early hours of Saturday.
The Mazda Dyna was loaded with empty gas cylinders and boxes of medical drugs with six male passengers.
The vehicle, owned by a Manus man, is contracted to the Lae area base medical store for drug procurement, and was returning to Lae after delivering drugs to the Modilon General Hospital in Madang.
Patsy Saku, from Buingim village in Bukawa, Morobe, said 12 people had boarded the truck in Madang to go to Lae. But, at the Ono Bridge, Saku and five others got off and transferred to a Toyota Land Cruiser, leaving the others to continue the trip to Lae on the Dyna truck.
Zifasing rural police station commander Simon Sinanu and highway patrol senior constables Simon Auma and Moses Aris could not confirm the cause of the accident.  
However, they said the impact of the collision
pushed the trailer 37m off the road and ripped off the truck's cabin, killing the driver instantly.
The crew member and two others in the cabin were crushed while four others at the back were trapped between the empty gas cylinders and the caved-in cabin.
All were crushed to death. Two were believed to be from Manus while six were from Bukawa.
Vehicles from East West Transport, Hi Lift and Shorncliffe (PNG) Ltd helped remove the trailer before Mutzing health officers could retrieve the bodies.
The semi-trailer was looted after the first accident. The accidents occurred along the Markham plains in Morobe while the vehicles were travelling to Lae from Mt Hagen (Western Highlands) and Madang respectively.
In one incident, a 25-seater Coaster PMV bus collided with a 22-wheel semi-trailer between 6pm and 9pm last Thursday, killing four passengers and a driver. Then, at 1am last Saturday, a Mazda truck returning from Madang crashed into the semi-trailer involved in the previous accident, which had been left without warning signals at the roadside, killing all eight aboard.

Papua New Guinea girl on US soccer scholarship

Proud Papua New Guineans in Western Australia have farewelled young female soccer player Zachirra Kanari for another term of her soccer scholarship in the United States of America.

Soccer star Shakira Kanari (third from right, front row) with members of the PNG community in Newman, Western Australia

Kanari is from Dagua, East Sepik and she has been playing soccer in Western Australia for the past two years prior to being selected for a scholarship.
She was on holidays last month in Newman-BHP Billiton Iron Ore’s mining township where her father Willie Kanari works as an engineering technician / tradesman.
The Kanaris are one of the 15 PNG families who reside there.

Shakira Kanari with her father Willie and mother Hedwig Kanari

She told the community about her experience in America and how challenging it had been since she took up the opportunity to play soccer and do her studies at the same time.
She is studying engineering at Pensacola College in Port Angeles, Washington State.
“I find it very challenging and I can say I am one of the fortunate young people to be selected from an Australian soccer team in Perth for a scholarship,” Kanari said.
“The training and fitness programme in America is of very high standard and I aim to do my best.
“I have set my goals to complete my studies and I know that to be successful it requires much effort and dedication.”
Her father Willie and mother Hedwig are proud parents and are encouraging other Papua New Guineans to support their children not only in academia but also in sports and whatever talents or interests they have.
The PNG-Newman community comprises of mine engineers, geologists, technical engineers and engineering technicians/tradesman in various trades.
Many of them have worked together in PNG and know each other from the mines.
The community is a registered not-for-profit organisation that was first established in 2007 by a number of members like. Wesley Peni who still resides in Newman, Carl Pelini and those who have left Newman to pursue other careers abroad and in Australia at large.
The members often have community gatherings through which they socialise and annually celebrate PNG’s independence.
They also raise funds to support charity and mid-last year they sponsored Pacific Adventist University students who participated in the Walk against Corruption.
The club also plans to make charity donations to the Royal Flying Doctors in Western Australia.
Treasurer and executive of the PNG-Newman Community, Joseph Aroviri acknowledged all members and thanked them for their efforts and support towards making this year a successful one.
“We are Papua New Guineans who have created a home-away-from-home where we maintain a strong community and we support each other as we go along,” he said.
Soccer is a common game in Newman and most of these families play the game.
They encourage their children to play the game as well and Miss Kanari has definitely set an example for them.

Goroka Show gets more support

By MALUM NALU

Support for next month's Goroka Show is gaining momentum with two more sponsors hopping on the bandwagon last week.

Barrick Kainantu came on board with K5, 000 while the Institute of PNG Studies chipped in with K1, 000 to help stage the Sept 16-18 event, which will coincide with independence celebrations.

Barrick representative George Pirie, while handing over the money, said although the sponsorship was small, he was hopeful that it would assist the show organising committee to achieve its objectives

Executive officer of Goroka Show and secretary of the Eastern Highlands Agricultural Society, Tom Soles,   received the money and thanked Barrick Kainantu for coming on board once again

 He said Barrick Kainantu initially came on board with a sponsorship of K20, 000 in 2008 but in the ensuing years, had scaled it down to K5, 000.

"This is understandable, given Barrick's scaled-down operations in Kainantu," Soles said.

"However, they have always endeavoured to make their presence felt annually at the Goroka Show, which is very encouraging.

 Soles called on the coffee companies and other business houses in the province to make their presence felt.

 "You have to give something back to the province for hosting you, and you have to reciprocate this by supporting community events like Goroka Show and others," he said.

Institute of PNG Studies director Don Nile said its K1, 000 was not much but he hoped it would go a long way in assist the committee's endeavours.

He said IPNGS would be documenting some traditional dances at the show for archival purposes.

Soles said the IPNGS proposal to document traditional dance and folklore was timely, given the onslaught of westernisation among young people.

APEC’s structural reform efforts boosted at Singapore workshop

Issued by APEC Residential Training Workshop on Structural Reform

 

Singapore, 11 August 2011 – Experts from APEC economies urged members to identify and implement structural reforms to boost trade and prosperity across the Asia-Pacific region.

 APEC Residential Training Workshop on Structural Reform participants will work with fellow policy-makers from 19 APEC economies over three days to identify domestic reform priorities and capacity building needs.

 Workshop participants will analyse questions of prioritising and sequencing reforms, as well as examining structural adjustment, regulation and competition.

 In his keynote address, Gary Banks, Chairman of the Australian Productivity Commission, shared with the participants Australia's experiences, challenges and successes in undertaking structural reforms over recent decades. 

 Highlighting some of the challenges and obstacles Mr Banks said that implementation of structural reform may face both technical barriers and strong domestic opposition. All economies face similar obstacles to securing beneficial reforms and APEC economies can learn off each other on how to overcome these obstacles.

 Explaining the importance of consultation in the reform process, Mr Banks said, "Australia has benefitted by creating institutions to identify reform needs and help build public support."

 Also speaking at the workshop, Dr. Deunden Nikomborirak, Research Director at Thailand's Development Research Institute Foundation, acknowledged the complexities of implementing reforms, especially competition policies.

 "Implementation of competition laws can be problematic," she said. "And if there are vested interests, how do we ensure that governments will implement the law?"

 "It is time for developing economies to rethink their policies and to collect evidence to see who the policies are actually benefiting. They have to start answering these questions."

 Separately, Australian Trade Minister Dr Craig Emerson has also singled out domestic structural reform as a priority for APEC economies and its significance for achieving sustained growth and advancing regional economic integration.

 "Better functioning domestic markets and institutions across the Asia-Pacific region will promote higher productivity and help economies maximise the benefits of open trade and investment regimes," said Dr Emerson.

 This workshop forms an important component of the APEC New Strategy for Structural Reform (ANSSR), launched at the 2010 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Yokohama, Japan.

 The strategy aims to promote balanced and sustainable growth by fostering transparency, competition and better functioning markets in the Asia-Pacific. In addition, this new strategy emphasises a social dimension that includes enhancing opportunities to women, education and SME development.

 The structural reform workshop is the second in a series of capacity building activities that advances APEC's new structural reform trajectory. The outcomes of the workshop will be used to inform future APEC structural reform activities.

 The last APEC New Strategy for Structural Reform (ANSSR) workshop of the year "Approaches to Assessing Progress on Structural Reform" will be held on September 19-20 on the margins of the third APEC Senior Officials' Meeting in San Francisco. It will focus on building developing economies' capacity to integrate measures to assess progress on the structural reform priorities they have set.

Remembering Goroka the way it used to be

By MALUM NALU

With just over a month to go before the world-famous Goroka Show, the town is stinking with piles of uncollected rubbish everywhere.
This is feasted upon by pigs in full view of everyone.
This is a far cry from the Goroka I knew, grew up in, and came to love – the Goroka I’d like to remember.
I found some classic old photos of Goroka, posted online by former Goroka resident Brian Wilson – from 1972 - at http://www.ski-epic.com/  , which stirred up so much nostalgia.
Goroka, like the rest of PNG, had its glory days in the pre-independence era, after which everything crumbled when the Australians left.
The town’s children of today, visitors from overseas and around the country, must know that Goroka was once one of the prettiest towns in Papua New Guinea.

Entrance to Goroka market in 1972. See how clean it is

I find myself following the yellow brick road to a land that promised so much hope and dreams back in the 1970s.
The first thing that struck me about Goroka was the beautiful flowers, shrubs, roaring streams, and, needless to say, cleanliness.

Downtown Goroka. Note the cleanliness of the streets

I was then seven years old, bound to turn eight later that momentous year of 1975, but the memories are still there, 36 years on.
The family of my mum, dad, elder sister, elder brother, my younger sister and me disembarked from an Air Niugini F27 Fokker Friendship one cold January morning in 1975.

West Goroka. Hardly any litter

I took my first breath – fresh, cool and clean mountain air – of what would be our home for the next three years until the end of 1977.
Back in 1975, mum, dad and my elder siblings were no newcomers to Goroka and the then Eastern Highlands District.

West Goroka on a Saturday afternoon in 1972. Note the spotlessly-clean streets

Mum and dad came here as newlyweds to Iufi Iufa primary school, Asaro Valley, in the early 1960s.
My father Mathias was a school inspector and an ex-Dregerhafen and Sogeri schoolmate of one Michael Somare while my Moasing mother was a missionary-trained nurse.
It was here that my elder sister Alison and my elder brother David were born.



Goroka Steamships - nicknamed Steamies  - which was both a grocery store and a department store

 I have so many pleasant memories of growing up in Goroka.
In those pre-independence and immediate post-independence days, colonialism was still in the air, hence, there being so many expatriates.
Goroka was a neat, well-planned colonial town, which – like Lae and Kainantu – was built around the airport.

Burns Philp shopping centre and Goroka Pharmacy

The airport then was a hive of activity, especially given Goroka being the base of Dennis Buchanan’s Talair.
Throwing frisbees and flying kites in the park, riding bikes, chasing muna (those seasonal beetles eaten by the locals), buying sweets, comic and books at West Goroka and lying in the Rotary Park and dreaming on those endless summer afternoons in December were among our great passions.

Traditionally-dressed Goroka women in 1972 outside the main market

Comic book trading – Donald Duck, Phantom, Walt Disney, Ritchie Rich, Casper The Friendly Ghost, Wendy The Good Little Witch, Bugs Bunny…and I could go on and on with the characters – was a way of life among us kids in those days.
I have no qualms that I learned more English and the nuances of grammar from those comic books than from school.

Goroka Post Office

Professional boxing was all the rage in those days of inimitable fighters like Martin Beni, the late John Aba, his brother Tony, Mark Apai and the lot.
Through the late Norm Salter – the great fight promoter – Goroka was able to host its share of professional and amateur bouts as well as wrestling matches featuring men, women and even midgets from overseas.

Jumbo, the elephant, in Goroka, 1972

Goroka’s YC Hall was the equivalent of Madison Square Gardens in the US - the true centre of boxing in the country.
The YC was also the centre stage for basketball in those days with national championships being held there in 1975, 1976 and 1977.

Halftime during an aussie rules match at the National Park, with the iconic Sports Club in the background

The showground, now the National Sports Institute, saw bone crushing rugby league matches as well as aerial rules football contests.
Of course, nothing in Goroka would be complete without the annual show, a colorful extravaganza of singsings, agricultural produce and those wonderful show bags we loved so much.

Goroka market 1972

The West Goroka Theatre, now the NSI gymnasium, was where we would sit on old coffee bags and watch those good old Bruce Lee and James Bond movies, as well as thrillers like Airport ’75, Jaws, Towering Inferno and King Kong – the place being literally packed to the rafters.
Radio then was king – there being no such thing as EMTV or video – and it was a joy to listen to the Sunday night dramas, Grade 10 quizzes and the live coverage of rugby league and other sports on the National Broadcasting Commission’s medium wave transmission.

Asariyufa village, next to Goroka Market. These days, pigs wander freely, unlike before

Yes, indeed, life was a wonderful dream for us who grew up in Goroka at the time.
Of course, in 1975, independence was in the air.
Young men who championed the cause, like Michael Somare, were treated with disdain by the lapuns and old colonials, who argued that independence would be a catastrophe.

Typical Goroka government house in 1972

Little PNG flags and independence t-shirts and caps were very fashionable.
At school the teacher, a beautiful Hula, Central province woman called Mrs Manoka, would ask us, one by one, to give our individual oratories about this thing called ‘Independence’.

Goroka Base Hospital 1971

That year, in April, there was excitement all around the brand new PNG currency was introduced.
Shiny 10 and 20 toes coins were all the rage among us kids.
The venerable Australian dollars and cents, which had become part of our lives, continued to be legal tender until after independence.

Saturday afternoon at West Goroka - full of out of town people from surrounding villages

Also that eventful year, by quirk of fate, a big frost in Brazil – the world’s biggest coffee producer – saw prices skyrocket.
It was a cause to celebrate with fortunes being made overnight, especially in the Highlands.
At the West Goroka shopping centre just down the road from where we lived, it was a common sight to see villagers in as tanget (leaf coverings, which were worn widely in those days instead of clothes) with huge wads of cash going on an orgy of spending, buying big cow legs, beer and stereos for the inevitable parties that followed.

Turner and Davey (TDE) electrical shop in West Goroka

My uncle, the coffee tycoon Jack Amos, made millions overnight and celebrated by travelling to the Phillipines to watch that famous ‘Thrilla in Manilla’ world heavyweight championship bout between Muhammed Ali and ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier.
These all added to the big party that was 1975.
September 15, 1975, was the last day for PNG to come under colonial rule.

Swimming pool at Minogere Lodge

Today, 36 years later, Goroka is still a beautiful place.
In fact, I spent four years there from 1998 to 2002, finding myself back on my childhood stomping grounds.
It was like arriving at a place I’d never left!
Memories of another day, those oh-so-happy childhood days, came rushing back.



Basketball game at Goroka Teachers College (now University of Goroka)

 And nostalgia filled my heart every time I saw something that reminded me of those blissful days.
Goroka still hasn’t lost its basic shape of 1975, 1976 and 1977 and still has that colonial feel about it.
Goroka, to me, is home.
After all, my siblings and I were born, raised and educated here.
In later years, my late wife and I spent four wonderful years in Goroka, and it was there that my two elder sons were born.
I dream of a golden future for this pleasantly-agreeable town with its perennial spring climate, majestic sentinel-like mountains and bouquet of perfumed flowers.
Let’s not turn Goroka into a pigsty!