Highlands leaders call for respect

LEADERS from the Highlands region are appealing to youths and the people of Morobe to refrain from attacking their people, The National reports.
They urged the Morobeans not to take the law into their own hands.
They said many Highlanders had already lost their businesses, houses and other properties during the clash last weekend.
Jerry Makinta from Western Highlands, who claimed to speak on behalf of the leaders in the region, said only a few highlanders were involved in the trouble.
The innocent majority has now been targeted too.
Makinta said the majority of highlanders had lived for a long time in Lae and contributed to the development of the country’s second city.

Displaced Lae city residents appeal to their politicians for help

By PISAI GUMAR
DISPLACED Highlanders taking refuge outside Igam Barracks are pleading for help from the government, The National reports.
They said they were sleeping in the open, near the gun gate and were using the nearby creek for sanitation.
A little help is coming from soldiers and their families.
They have renewed calls to their provincial representatives in Chimbu, Western and Southern Highlands to repatriate them.
Representatives of the 300-plus Highlanders said they had recorded three deaths since the weekend at the hands of Morobeans.
Many of their relatives are still hiding in bushes.
The displaced people said police yesterday helped to bring in another 15 people to the camp.
A Lutheran pastor from Highlands, named only as Peter, and his family, who was the parish pastor at Musom-Talec, is hiding in the bush.
The number at the Igam Barracks camp had risen from 300 on Sunday to almost 500 from all five highlands provinces.
The displaced highlanders said they also took part by contributing to hire two vehicles to transport Morobean youths to petition Morobe Governor Luther Wenge last Friday.
However, the Morobean youths turned on them, destroying and burning their properties including trade stores, houses and vehicles.
The number of confirmed dead remained at six - five of them are Morobeans allegedly shot by police and one a highlander, allegedly killed by Morobeans.
Three other Western Highlanders received knife wounds.
Two of the Morobeans who died from gun wounds were Basanaka Wanas, 40, male, from Kabwum and Ano Momo, 16, male, from Baindoang, Nabak in Nawaeb district.
The other four are yet to be identified.

Board closes Lae schools

By ELLEN TIAMU

SCHOOLS in Lae have been suspended indefinitely following fights that have erupted in pockets of the city since last Thursday, The National reports.
The provincial education board on Monday decided to stop classes until normalcy returns to the city.
Provincial education advisor Murika Bihoro said more than 20,000 students at all levels, elementary to Grade 12, had been advised to remain home until further notice.
Bihoro said Grade 8 students would be sitting for their examinations next week and hoped no further trouble would erupt.
Fighting on the streets began last Thursday near the Lae market, with another starting at the provincial government and administration headquarters at Top Town.
On Friday, fighting spilled over to the Malahang back road areas and Bumayong.
Six people have died as a result, with the last casualty, an adult male, killed on Monday at Bumayong.
Extra police from Port Moresby have been called in to keep the situation under control.
While business is cautiously returning to normal, tensions remain.

Mining boom in Papua New Guinea

THE mining and petroleum industryi s the biggest employer in Papua New Guinea in the past six years, The National reports.
The industry came close to doubling its workforce from 18,000 to 30,000 between 2003 and 2010.These figures were disclosed byMichael Uiari, the Oil Search general manager in PNG in charge of commercial,
legal and stakeholder management. He was speaking last Friday to journalists in Port Moresby about the industry’s benefit to PNG’s economy. The main projects in the pipeline are the PNG LNG project, Yandera, Ramu nickel, Wafi Golpu, Frieda River and Gulf LNG. There are a number of grass roots exploration projects in both mining and petroleum also employing a lot of workers in the fields. Projects commissioned into production during this period are Simberi and Hidden Valley mines.
Uiari said a growing number were hired in the exploration phases, smallscale alluvial mines and contractors and joint ventures being set up.
He said the industry was an integrated industry made up of exploration, evaluation, development and production, using a wide range of services and support industries, indirectly giving jobs to more people. They were mainly employed by aviation, drilling and drilling suppliers, seismic contractors, analytical laboratories and technical services of all types.
Others were involved in expediting and logistics, earthmoving and trucking sales and contractors, shipping of all types, port services, supply of motor vehicles and tyres, wholesaling and retailing of fuel, general merchandise, white goods, equipment, tools, food supplies and catering, maintenance and servicing contractors of all types, accounting, legal, engineering, surveying and other professional services, provision of accommodation including hotels, office and private rental residences, technical and vocational training and security.
“These groups benefit because our industry consumes goods and services from every aspect of our economy,” Uiari said.
The PNG LNG project alone currently employs 6,600 local workers compared to a maximum of 3500 projected before construction.
At the peak of construction in the second half of next year, total employment is expected to jump to 15,000 people – local and foreign combined.
The economy is expected to grow by a “low double-digit” this year which is expected to translate to significant increases in employment in contrast to 2009 when the economy grew by only 4.5% due mainly to the global financial crisis.
Uiari said the financial and other benefits provided by the resource projects were diverse and substantial including employment, royalty via the state, taxes, dividends, tax credit schemes, education and training, business and agricultural development, health programmes and services, community facilities and other infrastructure.
He said an estimated K1.47 billion in taxes was paid to the government last year.
Uiari said royalties alone during the past five years had totalled K1.1 billion calculated at the rate of 2% each from the mining and the petroleum sectors

SABL Commissioner Jerewai: I will not tolerate laxity

By JULIA DAIA BORE

A COMMISSIONER of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Special Agricultural and Business Leases (SABLs) investigations in Pomio and Palmalmal districts of East New Britain yesterday said he would not tolerate any “laxity” by any members of the CoI’s support staff, The National reports.
Alois Jerewai convened a special hearing of the commission at 9.30am yesterday in Port Moresby when he blasted three administrative staff for what he termed as their being “lax” in performing their duties.
He also called on them to explain for their laxity. Jerewai named them as Mathew Yuangu, the secretary of the Secretariat of the CoI’s SABLs, Ragagalo Raga who is the finance and administration manager and Augustine Sipaiah, the security/escort officer.
Sipaiah was reprimanded for not being present to accompany another agriculturalist in the team operating a K127,000 piece of equipment, to visit a timber site in the area.
Jerewai wanted their explanation made to the Commission on Nov 14.
“I will not allow any laxity to impede the progress of this Inquiry so as to be concluded well before the timeline set by the prime minister.”
Yuangu and Raga were  told to explain why Jerewai was not on the flight to Kokopo yesterday morning. Sipaiah was cautioned for absconding from duty while in Kokopo.
The four SABLs in the Pomio and the Palmalmal districts of East New Britain have been the centre of serious controversy. They had been projected to the world stage in such a way that the inquiry must establish with great amount of certainty based on evidence as to any irregularities which may have occurred in relation to those SABLs.
The attention is such that if this CoI, whether through logistical wants or through sheer neglect not by myself, but by the other members of the inquiry, including the technical staff, will reflect badly on our integrity,” he said.
“The gravity of this approach is this. Allegations of almost 5.2 million hectares of customary land that is owned by Papua New Guineans is not a matter to be taken lightly and as already seen in the preliminary stages and even now – the individual Inquiry into individual SABLs, is beginning to reveal very, very serious flaws.”
Jerewai’s team is in the Pomio and Palmalmal districts. Jerewai demanded that the show-cause resulting from not travelling back to Kokopo early yesterday morning to be in time for the 10am hearing of the SABL which he was to preside over.
In yesterday morning’s special hearing Jerewai said: “At the commencement of the inquiry in the preliminary stages, our focus was mainly on whether irregularities occurred in the lease-lease back arrangement to the state and in reversing back to the customary landowners or customary landowners’ choice of entities who will hold titles to these leases.
“But what had been revealed is that the true loss of or alienation of customary land occurred on the second stage where after the issue of the state lease on a lease-lease back to the customary landowners, was the sublease to the third persons. That is where the loss actually took place.
“I have not made a finding yet on this. I will repeat; I have not made a finding yet on this. This is the observation at this stage with the evidence I have at hand in relation to the SABLs I have been investigating in ENB,” Jerewai said.
“Therefore, it just magnifies the gravity of the situation we have and what may have been on the face of it in the preliminaries did not show us truly where alienation  may have taken place.
“My observation is that it was on the second phase and I am not going to be lax and I will not allow the CoI secretariat and other technical personnel to affect the Inquiry such that we do not reveal these defects.”
He added that he was making this revelation “with a great sense of gravity” as he was doing so without the presence of Chief Commissioner John Numapo and Commissioner Nicholas Mirou who were in other provinces, investigating.
Jerewai, however, said he was convinced that it was “necessary to do this”.

‘Only 39% of rural folks have clean water'

By SALLY POKITON UPNG journalism student

ONLY 39% of people in the rural areas have access to clean water, Department of Planning and Monitoring deputy secretary Joe Kaupa says, The National reports.
Speaking during a two-day conference on rural water supply and sanitation programme policy, Kaupa said it was time that a specific water project be developed.
He said the European Union partnership programme with the rural water supply and sanitation programme and development partners needed to come up with an effective policy that would cover the usage, maintenance, sustainability and commercialisation of clean water in rural areas.
Kaupa thanked the European Union for making a provision of K75 million that would contribute towards the government’s meeting of Millennium Development Goals on the provision of clean water.
He said that by the end of 2012, 500,000 people in the country would have access to clean water and a target of reaching 75% of the population by 2030.
Public Health executive manager Enoch Posanai said the government’s objective was to improve health to an affordable and acceptable degree.
“Ill health is a direct condition of the physical environment.
“To be healthy, PNG must have a clean and safe water supply,” Posanai said.
Posanai said in order to achieve its goal to be a healthy nation as stated in the Vision 2050, government had to start fixing its health system and creating a national water policy was the way forward.
Water PNG chief execu­tive officer Patrick Amini said a strategic plan on the water supply and sanitation development plan 2006-2015 was in place, with completed development projects in Bereina and Kwikila while construction was under way in Maprik, Finschhafen and Kainantu

Papua New Guinea ranks poorly in Human Development Index survey

RESOURCES-rich Papua New Guinea has been ranked 153 out of 187 countries surveyed on the Human Development Index, falling below most of its smaller South Pacific island neighbours, The National reports.
This ranking places PNG in the last of four rankings from very high human development to low human development.
Of the nine Pacific nations included in the survey, Melanesian neighbour the Solomon Islands shares this category but is 11 places higher at 142.
Tiny Palau, which was included in the ranking only this year, and Tonga ranked 49 and 90 respectively. They are the only island nations that are part of the high human development ranked countries.
Australia is second and New Zealand is fifth on the ranking.
The 2011 report, themed Sustainability and equity: A better future for all, argues that environmental sustainability could be most fairly and effectively achieved by addressing health, education, income and gender disparities together with the need for global action on energy production and ecosystem protection.
The HDI is a yardstick that focuses on the human elements of development, combining indicators of health and education with the more traditional economic indicators.
It normally gives important insights that can be used to identify key development needs.
It said in PNG’s case, despite strident economic growth in the past six years, the area of human development had largely been ignored.
Pacific Island countries have varied levels of human development.
Most of the Pacific Island countries appear in the “medium human development” category.
These include by rank Samoa (99), Fiji (100), FSM (116), Kiribati (122) and Vanuatu (125).
Three countries in the Pacific have higher than average life expectancy than other small island development states.
These are Palau 64, Tonga 63 and Fiji 62 years respectively