Chimbu eliminations begin

By ZACHERY PER

A TOTAL of 51,643 ballots allowed in the Kundiawa-Gembogl by-election count remain "alive" among the 27 surviving candidates after early eliminations yesterday, The National reports.
According to the progressive count posted on the board at the end of 16th eli­mi­nation there were 74 ballots exhausted.
Kundiawa-Gembogl Returning Of­fi­cer James Piapia expects more ballots to be exhausted towards the end of today and tomorrow as second and third pre­fe­rences for eliminated candidates surface.
As Piapia suspended counts last night 16 candidates had been eliminated leaving 27 candidates still in the race.
The elimination continues today with candidates who have the least number of votes to be the next to be forced out of the race.
Candidates eliminated from the race as of the 16th elimination were Christina Num Nulai, William Gumane, John Brown, Philip Gena Kimagl, Maima Gull, Susan Dua Dingi, Peter Baka, Willie Drua, Toby Gende Abraham, Timon Wena, Loko Kal Ongatnem, Paul Gandi Dekemba, Joe Merimba, Tangil Iambakey Okuk, Peter Kuglo Peter and Paul Gegasunga Gags.
When their preferences were distributed, Prime Minister Peter O'Neill's Peoples National Congress Party candidate Peter Waieng maintained his lead with 6¸932 votes. Veteran politician and former Minister Mathew Siune is on 5, 117 votes while Constitutional Democratic candidate Tobias Kulang is on 4,379 votes and former MP Wagi Merimba is on 3,814. People's Party candidate Paul Gende is running fifth with 3,725 votes.
A winner is expected to be declared by tomorrow or Friday before the writs are returned to the governor-general by Aug 26

National Planning plans visits to LLGs

By ALISON ANIS

THE Department of Na­tional Planning and Monitoring is carrying out a consultative programme targeting all lo­cal level governments (LLG), Mi­nister Sam Basil says, The National reports.
Basil yesterday an­noun­ced the consul­ta­tions process would begin on Monday in Alotau, Milne Bay.
"This is the first time we will be consulting with the LLG managers in all four regions to see how we can work with them to improve service delivery and basic infrastructure," he said at a media briefing at Vulu­pindi Haus.
Basil said district and provincial administrators were invited to join the meetings planned for this month but the key people during consultations would be LLG councillors and managers.
"These are the people who truly represent the grassroots and people of the country," he said.
"We believe that all LLGs and districts in PNG must have the resources and must be empowered to look after themselves," Basil said.
He said his team would be visiting Kokopo, East New Britain, on Aug 24-25 to talk to LLG ma­nagers from the Islands region, including the Bou­gain­ville Autonomous Region.
Basil said on Aug 26, the department would meet with Highlands LLG heads in Mt Hagen, Western Highlands.
Consultations with the Momase group would be held in Madang on Aug 29.
Basil said the aim was to bring tangible development at LLG level and see improvement of services delivery to the people.
"One way to do that is through public-private partnership (PPP) with government agencies, business houses and other credible organisations to see that rural people have direct access to services such as transport, electricity, communications and technology such as provided through the installation of VSat."
Basil said it was the dream of the new government to see that people had access to health, education and that the overall social welfare was improved.

State’s lawyer keeps plans ‘confidential’

By SAMUEL RAITANO

LAWYERS representing the state will not disclose how the attorney-general will serve a copy of the amended Supreme Court reference by the East Sepik provincial government to Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare, The National reports.
Lawyer Greg Shepard, of Young and Williams Lawyers, is representing Attorney-General Dr Allan Marat.
Shepard said disclosure of such information, though in this case was of public interest, would touch on lawyer-client confidentiality.
When asked what would happen if nobody was allowed to visit Sir Michael, he said the court would direct them on that matter.
Marat yesterday said he and his lawyers would ensure Monday's Supreme Court directions to serve court documents on East Sepik regional MP Sir Michael and four other interveners would be executed. 
"It was a Supreme Court direction and it will be done between now and next Tuesday," Marat said.
He said that it would be done as soon as the sealed court directions were received by his lawyers.
The Supreme Court had on Monday ruled that the deadline for the service of documents to concerned parties should be by the end of business on Friday.
The court had ordered that the attorney-general served the documents on allthose who were interested to join. On Monday, seven interested parties were named. The court ruled that any other party interested to join should do so by tomorrow.
Sir Michael, who is sick and under medical care in a hospital in Singapore, would have to be served the reference.
Sir Michael is East Sepik regional MP. It was his post that was allegedly stripped triggering the special reference.
Sources at the attorney-general's office said certain personnel could be sent to Singapore today to serve the reference.
It was understood that even if Sir Michael was not well to study the reference, he would have to appoint a lawyer on his behalf to do it for him, and evidence should be provided of that.
Marat said lawyers would fly to Singapore if that was what it took to serve the court documents

Corrupt 7 jailed in Southern Highlands

SEVEN people, including a woman, who held leadership positions in the provincial and local level governments in Southern Highlands, have been jailed for misusing public funds totalling more than K300,000, The National reports.
Three others, including former sports minister and Nipa-Kutubu MP Philemon Embel, are either awaiting sentences or still being investigated for misusing more or the same amount of money.
National Anti-Corruption Alliance chairman and Police Commissioner Tony Wagambie said yesterday that the seven were jailed as a result of successful investigations carried out by the alliance and police.
"So far, for Southern Highlands, there have been seven convictions, one acquittal, and two cases pending National Court decisions," Wagambie said.
He said among those convicted was former Ialibu district administrator Francis Ipuke, who was jailed for four years for misappropriating K212,000 belonging to the Ialibu Urban LG.
Wagambie said Rachel Okpio, president of the SHP Women's Council, was jailed for four years for misappropriating K50,000 belonging to the council.
Wagambie said other people who were convicted were:

• Councillor Andrew Mambea, president of the Kuare LLG, Kagua, who was sentenced to five years jail for misappropriating K8,700 being allowances for Village Court officials;
• Pisa Solo, LLG clerk for Lai, who was sentenced to three years for misappropriating K20,000 LLG grants;
• Andrew Epei, Ialibu town council manager, who was sentenced to four years for misappropriating K212,000, belonging to the Ialibu Urban LG; and
• Andrew Mambea, council president Kuare LLG, Kagua, who was sentenced to four years jail for misappropriating K10,000.
  

Wagambie said the presiding judge had yet to make a ruling on the case of Francis Yoke, the provincial education adviser, who was found guilty of misappropriating K42,000 school fee subsidy.
He said Yoke was remanded at the Bomana prison.
He said bail had been extended to Daniel Undialu, district treasurer for Koroba-Lake Kopiago, who was alleged to have misappropriated district treasury funds totalling K94,000.
He said Embel was accused of misappropriating K165,000 of a church grant and was committed to trial but had appealed through a judicial review which was pending before the courts.
Wagambie said "massive fraud" complaints against the Department of National Planning would be investigated.
"NACA, in a bid to stop corruption, will continue to inves­tigate and bring to justice those who have corruptly taken and used money belonging to the people of PNG," he said.
He expressed satisfaction with the work of NACA and said more was needed to be done in the fight against corruption.
He said the organisation had already undertaken a number of other investigations into the Southern Highlands, Gulf, and East Sepik provinces as well as the Nimamar LLG in Lihir, New Ireland.
He said NACA was made up of 10 government organisations including police, Ombudsman Commission and the departments of provincial affairs, treasury and personnel management, offices of the auditor-general, solicitor-general, public prosecutor, Internal Revenue Commission and PNG Customs.

InterOil records US$23.5m net profit for Q2

INTEROIL Corp last Friday posted a consolidated net profit of US$23.5 million in the second quarter ended June 30, 2011, The National reports.
This compares with a net profit of US$7.8 million for the same period last year, an improvement of US$15.7 million.
The operating segments of corporate, midstream refining and downstream collectively returned a net profit for the quarter of US$34.5 million.
The development segments of upstream and midstream liquefaction yielded a net loss of US$11 million.
This movement was mainly due to higher foreign exchange gains realised on the strengthening of the kina against the US dollar from 0.3895 at the start of the second quarter of this year and ending the quarter at 0.4350, the gains realised on shares acquired as an investment interest in Flex LNG.
InterOil's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation for the quarter was a gain of US$39 million, compared with a gain of US$14.9 million for the same period last year, an increase of US$24.1 million.
Total revenue increased by US$78.5 million from US$225.3 million last year to US$303.8 million for the second quarter this year.
In the quarter, InterOil and Pacific LNG Ope­rations Ltd entered into framework agreements with Samsung Heavy Industries and Flex LNG Ltd, conditional upon a final investment decision relating to the construction and operation of a 1.8 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) floating natural gas liquefaction processing vessel.
The project was intended to be integrated with and augment proposed infrastructure to liquefy natural gas from the onshore Elk and Antelope fields in the Gulf province.
The onshore liquefaction facility was being pursued with Energy World Corp. and Mitsui and Co Ltd.
Subsequent to the quarter end, InterOil announced on Aug 2 the signing of a heads of agreement with Noble Clean Fuels Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Noble Group Ltd, which was to form the basis for negotiation of a binding, definitive agreement for the supply to Noble of 1.0mtpa of LNG from InterOil's proposed Gulf LNG project in Papua New Guinea.
InterOil chief executive officer Phil Mulacek said: "In addition to continuing to pre-invest in the Gulf LNG project in advance of FID, InterOil achieved another milestone in advancing our development project with the recent execution of a HOA with Noble Group.
"Noble has a proven track record of providing long-term fuel supply to major utilities across Japan, South Korea and China and is a good fit with InterOil's strategy of expanding LNG markets," he said.
He said the addition of Sir Rabbie Namaliu, former Prime Minister and former Petroleum and Energy minister to InterOil's PNG advisory board should assist InterOil in discussions with government departments in developing the Gulf LNG Project.
"Furthermore, we have advanced our understanding of the structure of the Triceratops/Bwata structure, having recently completed the acquisition of three of the four additional seismic lines over the field, and are now preparing to drill the Triceratops 2 well," he said.

Accident victim wants review of road rules

By PISAI GUMAR

AN injured passenger in a recent fatal road accident at Sasiang Farm, along the Markham plains in Morobe, has called for stringent measures to be esta­blished for trucking companies including the issuing of driving licences, The National reports.
Mt Hagen Secondary School deputy principal James Pini (pictured) made the call yesterday from his hospital bed at the Lae International Hospital.
Pini had sustained two broken bones on his right hand while his wife, Naomi, received injuries to her head.
Others admitted at the Angau Memorial Hospital included George Ning, Peter Philip, Joshua Kopugl and Jonny Boy from Moge-Namb in Hagen Central with body and head injuries.
Pini wanted the relevant authorities to seriously review:
.The operating regulations of trucking companies;
.Issuing of driving licences;
.Penalties for careless dri­ving;
.Establishment of weighing stations; and
.Awarding of road contracts and maintenance.
Among the fatal accidents along the Markham plains since last year was the collision of two Coaster buses at Ragiampun which resulted in 40 deaths in January and another involving evangelist Joseph Kingal and his family at Zumim Bridge last November.
Two Fridays ago, a Landcruiser utility belonging to Traisa Transport ran into the back of a semi-trailer belonging to Rookes Marine resulting in three deaths.
Last Thursday, a Coaster bus collided with a KK & Sons semi-trailer resulting in five deaths.
Early last Saturday morning, a Mazda Dyna ploughed into the same semi-trailer which was left on the roadside after Thursday's accident resulting in eight more deaths.
Altogether, 57 deaths were recorded since last year while those who sustained injuries in other crashes went unreported.
Pini also pointed out two other factors resulting in the accidents on the highway – bad road conditions and careless driving.
"Who will be responsible for the expense of the deaths and compensations, hospital surgery and treatment fees for injured persons including living costs for the families of those that died?
"Is it the government or trucking company, PMV and vehicle owners involved?" Pini said.
"The government needs to think critically and put in place measures to guide, control and minimise such road accidents."
Meanwhile, Lae area base medical store (LABMS) mana­ger Polume Jonathan said LOHA Customs and Forwarding, LD Logistics and MDL were the three companies engaged in medical supplies procurement.
"I have no knowledge of the arrangement for the Mazda Dyna involved in the accident, reportedly returning from Madang after procurement of medical supplies," Jonathan said.
The truck is owned by JED Logistics Company, engaged by the Health Department in Port Moresby for procurement of medical supplies.
They were recently established in Lae but cargo forwarding and consignments were done in NCD while, in Lae, they did deliveries only to required destinations.
However, having no proper warehouse, they were allowed to use the LABMS yard but have no proper vehicles, he said.

Youth dies in election clash

A MAN has died following a clash between two groups supporting rival candidates during the Kundiawa-Gembogl by-election in Chimbu, The National reports.
A compensation de­mand of K100,000 and 52 pigs was imposed on the two candidates by re­la­tives of Peter Bob, 18, of Gembogl.
Relatives of the de­ceased presented the compensation demands to the two candidates last week. Bob had died of head injuries.
Police said immediately after the polling in one of the stations in Gembogl, supporters of the two rival candidates had a fight.
The deceased sustained serious head injuries as a result and was rushed to the Kundiawa General Hos­pital where he died after a few days.
Chimbu provincial po­lice commander acting Supt John Kale confirmed the incident and said police mediated with the tribes and settled for the compensation.
He said the body of the deceased was taken to his Siago village on the foot of Mt Wilhelm for burial last Thursday.
Kale has appealed to candidates and their supporters to maintain peace during the counting.
"It is important that people respect each other and live peacefully, because election comes and goes and the people must live peacefully and lead normal lives," Kale said.
Last Saturday evening, police dispersed sup­por­ters of the two candidates as they were trying to argue and fight among themselves.