Goroka Show gets K20,000 boost

By MALUM NALU

THE popular Goroka Show, PNG’s biggest tourist-pulling event, will get even bigger and better this year, according to Eastern Highlands Farmers and Settlers Association (EHFSA) president Wilson Thompson.
He said this last Thursday during the presentation of K20,000 from Bank South Pacific to Eastern Highlands Agriculture Society for the 2012 Goroka Show.
BSP Goroka branch manager Ruben Elizah and rural banking regional manager Joe Waim handed over the money to EHFSA and show executives.

Thompson (left) receives the K20,000 from Elizah as Goroka Show chairman Gideon Samuel looks on.-Picture by THOMAS SOLEPA

Elizah said BSP was committed to community activities such as the show, and construction of a mess as Mesauka Secondary School, while Waim said rural branches and small business facilities would be opened in Okapa, Aiyura and Yonki,
“All accommodation have already been booked out by tourists and others are even booking for 2013,” Thompson said.
“I challenge Tourism Promotion Authority and National Cultural Commission to also assist in this premier event.
“We will soon be asking them to remove Goroka Show from their brochures and publications as we have not had any support from them, apart from the Institute of PNG Studies.”
Thompson said the first day of the show would be committed to agriculture and rural development, hence, it was fitting that BSP was now placing more emphasis on rural banking and financial services.
Goroka Show chairman Gideon Samuel said National Gaming Control Board had sponsorship rights for the show, with BSP being the second major sponsor.

Peter O'Neill set to win Ialibu/Pangia seat back

Peter O'Neill is set to win his Ialibu/Pangia seat back.
He has primary votes of more that 50% plus one.
He is set to be the first candidate to win in the 2012 national elections.
O'Neill, at last count, had more than 16,000 votes so it should just be a mere formality for him in the remaining ballot boxes.
At last count today, O'Neill had 16, 583 votes and his closest rival was Raphael Noipo (2,930), while Eke Lama was third on 2, 767 votes.

More details to be posted.

World Bank: PNG must spend better

By MALUM NALU

THE passing of the boom in PNG government revenues will challenge authorities in the coming years, according to the World Bank, The National reports.
 This is according to its latest PNG Economic Briefing The Challenge of Transforming Today’s Boom Into Better Living Standards for Tomorrow,  which was presented by World Bank country economist Tim Bulman at the monthly economic and public sector programme seminar at the Holiday Inn last Friday.

Tim Bulman

The report said meeting the community’s expectations of improving services would require “spending better as much as spending more.
Important policy steps are being taken in this direction, but the pressures to meet short-term demands, and PNG’s social needs, are great”.
“Before the revenues from the LNG and the potential additional projects start flowing late this decade, government revenues are expected to stagnate, especially relative to rising costs of skilled employees, and of materials and the demands of a population growing by around 2% each year,” it said.
“At the same time, the community will continue to expect the government to provide more and better services, towards benefitting from the boom occurring in parts of the economy.”
The report said to manage these opposing pressures, it would be essential for the government to better ensure that spending from the government was translated into education, health and other services delivered to the end user with fewer leakages en route, or that investments in infrastructure were appropriately maintained.
“This will require both better planning and implementation,” it said.
“The establishment of the sovereign wealth fund and the government’s move towards multi-year budgets for capital projects are steps in this direction.
“More effective, especially in the short term, will be reducing leakages.
“Strong institutions of governance, throughout the public sector, and developing a pervasive culture of accountability can help achieve this.”
The report said translating economic wealth of the scale enjoyed by PNG into better living conditions for all citizens was a great challenge.
“Some countries have successfully managed the challenge of the ‘resource curse’,” it added.
“Already, PNG has created a climate that attracts investment in its resource production, and it is developing the institutions to ensure that this wealth supports a stable macro-economy.
“For long-term development and prosperity, it will be essential to design PNG institutions that ensure political leaders have the incentives to turn the nation’s wealth into long-term, broad-based development, rather than maximising the potential for it to generate short-term private rents.
“Failure to do this may undermine the gains of the past decade and the potential ongoing boom, working its way through the project planning and preparation pipeline.”
The report said Standard & Poor’s warned of this risk in February this year when it shifted the outlook for the country’s long-term sovereign debt from stable to negative.
“The challenge will be for the leadership that emerges from the mid-year elections to replicate these efforts in the public realm,” it said.

InterOil extends LNG deal with Mitsui

INTEROIL announced at the weekend that it has entered into agreements with Mitsui & Co Ltd to extend the dates by which certain conditions are to be met and final investment decisions (FID) made in LNG project agreements with Mitsui until Dec 31, 2012, The National reports.
 On March 30, 2012, InterOil indicated additional amendments to extend the joint venture operating agreement (JVOA) for the company’s proposed condensate stripping plant (CSP) with Mitsui, and associated agreements to December 31, 2012, were being contemplated.
“The JVOA for the company’s proposed CSP with Mitsui and associated agreements, have been amended so that the time allowed for FID has been extended until December 31, 2012,” InterOil said in a press statement.
“The JVOA sets out the rights and obligations of the participants of the joint venture to develop a CSP at InterOil’s Elk and Antelope field site in Gulf province, Papua New Guinea.”

Angry Anderson returns to Kokoda

Australian rock singer-songwriter, television presenter-reporter, actor, and political activist Angry Anderson returns to Kokoda on Monday to lead a group across the Kokoda Trail with Charlie Lynn of Adventure Kokoda. Angry first trekked Kokoda in 1996 as part of the ‘Angry Anderson Challenge’ which included a group of Australian celebrities led by Charlie Lynn.

Angry Anderson enjoying a bush buffet along the Kokoda Trail in January 1996

The trek was filmed by Channel 9 and screened on the following Anzac Day.
The epic television feature attracted an audience of more than three million viewers and put Kokoda on the map.
Angry returned to the trail a few months later to take a young child, Kennedy Siga from Alola village, to Melbourne for a serious operation on his legs.
Kennedy’s journey also featured on a Channel 9 television documentary.
Angry has always harboured a strong desire to return to Kokoda and trek it again with Charlie Lynn.
They will be joined by another 30 trekkers who will follow the original wartime trail which has been carefully mapped by Charlie over the past five years.

Angry Anderson and Darryl Braithwaite on Kokoda

At the time of the Angry’s last trek in 1996 only a handful of hardy trekkers made their way across the Kokoda Trail each year.
There were no accurate maps and the original battlesites were difficult to reach as some had been reclaimed by the jungle.
Others had been bypassed by new tracks and there were no memorials or monuments to identify the significance of the battlesites.
Since Channel 9 put Kokoda on the map with the Angry Anderson Challenge more that 30,000 Australian trekkers have trekked across it in what is becoming one of the most significant pilgrimages they will ever undertake.



Angry Anderson on This is Your LIfe

 There is much more to our shared wartime history than Kokoda. Rabaul, Milne Bay, Buna, Gona, Lae, Finchaffen, Nadzab, Shaggy Ridge, Madang and Wewak are some of the locations that could give rise to a wartime tourism industry that would have no equal in the Pacific.
Kokoda is the gateway and Angry Anderson helped prise the gate open with his epic challenge in 1996.
Angry and Charlie have been supported by Air Niugini who initiated Kokoda 70 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the war in Papua New Guinea.

The way forward for the Motu-Koitabuans

By REGINALD RENAGI

After being seriously marginalised since PNG got its independence in 1975, a practical way forward must now be found for the Motu-Koita (MK) including the people of Koiari from the Sogeri Plateau in the Central province.
 There is now a very pressing development need for the MK to have a good road map for the way forward into the future.
After this mid-year national general election, it is most imperative for all MK community together with their community leaders to rise up with its own future agenda of what they see as the most critical issues affecting their community; upon which the city of Port Moresby is situated.
It is also most important for the Motu-Koitabu Assembly (LLG) and the National Capital District Commission (NCDC) administration to work together with the national government and synergistically improve the MK (and Koiari) people’s quality of life now, and in the future.
It is now more imperative than ever before for the national government to immediately put in place a good independent political structure to encompass all MK (and Koiari) communities within the Central province. 
 Its key goals among others must be to effectively promote the aspirations including the future wellbeing and welfare of the Motu-Koitabuan (including the Koiaris) society within Central province.
In view of what has happened in recent years, I now call on the relevant authorities to critically address the ongoing plight of the MK (and Koiari) communities in these key areas:

• Review the Motu-Koita Act and importantly, make the current Motu-Koita Assembly more effective, efficient, transparent and accountable than it is now;

•   The national government must in the next five-years create a strong political structure for either a new MK Open Electorate within NCD, or a separate new MK (to also include Koiari) Electorate within Central Province for obvious reasons;

•   Through joint efforts of the MKA, NCDC administration and the Central Provincial Government demand the national government to place an immediate ‘Moratorium’ on all NCD Land sales, while at the same time; a comprehensive ‘Social Mapping of the total MK and Koiari landowner clans genealogy surveys to be conducted in Port Moresby; and throughout Central Province;

•  A special Capital City ‘development package’ be negotiated with the national government to fairly compensate (through loss of their traditional land) the peoples of the MK and Koiari landowners, and be backdated to self-government in 1973 up till today;and

• The new PNG government after the national election must make it one of its number one priority considerations by critically addressing the long outstanding plight of the MK and the Koiari people, and only then; that they can start empowering themselves by transforming their lives as we progress further into this millennium.

Illicit trade into PNG begins at Batas Market

By MALUM NALU

Batas Market, on the Indonesian side of the border with PNG at Wutung in West Sepik province, is where the multi-million kina trade of illicit goods into PNG begins.

Batas has, over the years, become a mecca for shoppers from all over PNG to buy cheap Indonesia food, clothing, electronic goods and other items, however, in recent times, it has become the hub for trade of illicit goods into PNG.

British American Tobacco, for one, estimates that PNG loses at least K7.2 million a year because of illicit tobacco products being smuggled in through the border post at Wutung.

Cheap Indonesia cigarettes and other goods on sale at Batas Market on the Indonesian side of the border last weekend.-Pictures by MALUM NALU

Millions more, however, is lost to PNG through smuggling in of other products from Indonesia, despite the Border Development Authority (BDA) being set up at a cost of K75 million in 2009 with the purpose of dealing with development and security issues in border provinces of PNG.

The concern is that smuggling is also indicative of a bigger, more aggressive cancer that eats away at government revenue and the local economy: transnational crime.

Transnational crime includes narcotics, arms smuggling, money laundering, human trafficking, counterfeit products and terrorism

The National visited Batas last weekend and saw pornography, sexual toys for both men and women, cigarettes, alcohol and various other items being sold at very cheap prices.

The multi-million kina illicit trade in PNG using smuggled items from Indonesia, particularly cigarettes, is flourishing during the elections with decreased Customs, police and military presence at Wutung Border Post.

The border post at Wutung

Lack of personnel at Wutung means that smugglers basically have free reign during the election period.

With PNG lacking maritime strength to patrol the sea border, there is no control of what comes in through this.

Customs were not checking in goods brought in from Batas Market on the Indonesian side of the border last weekend.

Last Sunday, The National witnessed the illicit trade at Vanimo Airport, where several carefully-packed cartons of Indonesian cigarettes consigned for Wewak and Mt Hagen were loaded on to an Air Niugini Q400 flight bound for Wewak, without as much as a question being asked as to their contents.

Cheap Indonesian cigarettes being sold at a roadside stall in Vanimo at the weekend. These cigarettes proliferate in Vanimo and are now being smuggled in large consignments into the Highlands.

A private intelligence source monitoring the illicit trade at the border, told The National in Vanimo that a highly-organised racket involving wealthy Highlands businessmen and local Wutung and West Sepik villagers existed.

A senior government officer told The National in Vanimo that the illicit trade was a serious threat to national security as guns, drugs and human trafficking could easily be carried out from Indonesia.

The intelligence source said the cigarettes were transported to Aitape near the border of East and West Sepik provinces, and then moved down to Wewak and then Madang for transport to the Highlands.

“It comes from the Batas Market, across the Wutung Border Post, and then comes out towards Vanimo,” he said.

“What the Highlands businessmen are doing is that they liaise with the local villagers and get them to carry Indonesian cigarettes across from Batas.

“They stockpile these cigarettes in the villages until they reach 20-30 cartons.

“These then come out from Wutung Village via boat or road to Aitape,  transported by road to Wewak, then loaded onto ships or dinghies for Madang or Bogia, where they are picked up and transported by road to Mt Hagen, Minj or Banz.

“The concern is that these Indonesia cigarettes are brought in without paying any excise duty to the government, which is missing out on millions.”

The senior government officer said this was a very serious threat to national security which must be addressed immediately.

“All stakeholders including Customs, police and PNG defence Force must work together,” he said.

“I do not know what the Border Development Authority is doing.

“There are no patrol boats manning the maritime border with Indonesia.

“Cutoms officers at the Wutung Border Post are under-resourced and this is a very big concern.

“Apart from cigarettes, anything can be brought into PNG like forearms, drugs, anything.

A Papua New Guinea customer (back to camera) checking out electronic goods at Batas Market.

“It’s a concern for the government and they have to address this at the national level.

“Smuggling is very big.”

A Customs insider told The National recently that  it was ironic that Customs collected K2.3 billion in 2011 fiscal year but the total recurrent allocations for 2012 was only K18 million which was a mere 0.008% of what the organisation collected.

“There are things happening at our borders every day,” the source said.

“The border control and enforcement agencies are under resourced in terms of manpower, logistical support and training.

“Further to that, border enforcement officers are not being properly looked after in terms of housing, good salary, etc.

“Government agencies have very low staff retention rates where well-trained and qualified persons leave and find pastures elsewhere for better working conditions.”

The source said acceptance of bribes by officers was brought by the increasing cost of living.

“An officer is likely to forgo over K20, 000 state revenue at any one instance by accepting less than K200 offer for approval and release of goods or people,” he said.

“The consequential risks attached with allowing such people or goods to enter the country are far more damaging for the people, the legitimate business community and the country in terms of security and revenue for the state.

“Responsible governments must increase funding towards staff welfare, salary/wages for staff and build the resource capabilities so that officers can perform their tasks with professionalism and due care.”