Papua New Guinea approves 50 applications from Manus Island asylum seekers but resettlement delayed

By Liam Cochrane
ABC       

December 16, 2014, 8:24 am

    

 

Papua New Guinea has approved 50 refugee applications from the 1,000 men on Manus Island, but is yet to resettle anyone.

PNG's foreign minister Rimbink Pato said the assessment of asylum applications on Manus Island was going "full speed on every front".
"Fifty asylum seekers have been determined genuine refugees," Mr Pato said.
He said the men will be resettled in PNG but that has been delayed by the lack of a policy framework.
While a permanent policy has been under review for months, an interim plan has been announced.
Papua New Guinea will give refugees 12-month bridging visas and help them find jobs but the longer-term prospects for refugees are not clear.
Australia is funding a new immigration detention centre near Port Moresby that PNG officials say is for asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected and are being deported.
There have been no reports, so far, of negative assessments.

Papuan bishop decries witch hunts, violence against women

By Antonio Anup Gonsalves

Wabag, Papua New Guinea, Dec 15, 2014 / 02:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A bishop in Papua New Guinea last week condemned the witch hunts which take place in the country, where many residents believe in sorcery and those accused of practicing it – mostly women – are attacked and murdered by mobs.


Indigenous Papuans performing a traditional dance. Credit: Diocese of Daru-Kiunga.

“I encourage all our citizens not to get into this bad habit of accusing innocent and defenseless people of sorcery, resulting in torturing and killing,” Bishop Arnold Orowae of Wabag, capital of Enga province in Papua New Guinea's highlands, said in a Dec. 9 statement.
“This is a moral evil that should not be practiced,” he added.
Nearly all of Papua New Guinea's population is Christian, and 27 percent is Catholic, yet many Papuan Christians integrate indigenous beliefs and practices into their religious life.
Some indigenous Papuans do not believe in misfortune and accidents, and attribute them to sorcery, while the accusation can also be used for revenge or envy. Amnesty International reports that women are six times more likely to be accused of sorcery than are men.
Bishop Orowae said the accused are often women who are “vulnerable and defenseless, and people run around aimlessly taking pleasure in accusing, torturing, and even killing them.”
“No one is there to defend these defenseless women,” Bishop Orowae lamented. “It is saddening to hear and experience such brutal killings.”
In August, the country's Institute of National Affairs told Pacific Beat that much of the sorcery-related violence is committed by young men in “power plays” in their rural communities.
“In this age and time we cannot continue to act and behave like barbaric people who have no respect for life and who kill to protect their territories,” Bishop Orowae stated.
Witch hunts begin at funerals of the deceased, or the bedside of the ill, Richard Eves, an anthropologist with the Australian National University, told The Diplomat, an Asia-Pacific current affairs magazine, earlier this year. The magazine noted: “With limited medical or scientific understandings of health and illness, communities find few alternative explanations to counter their deeply embedded fear of supernatural evils.”
Bishop Orowae said: “People are still ignorant and would not want to accept that people can die at any time through sickness or damage done to their body. Even healthy people can die of sicknesses.”
“Where does this come from?” he asked. “It is either pure jealousy, or it is used as a means to accuse people for revenge.”
Bishop Orowae, who is president of the Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands bishops' conference, reminded local residents that “respect for life should be in the conscience of all people regardless of who that person is.”
“We have laws of the country that govern us,” he stated. “We have the Christian faith that also determines our way of life in following Jesus, proclaiming his truth and living his life.”
Papua New Guinea's 1971 Sorcery Act criminalized the practice of sorcery, and accepted the accusation of sorcery as a defense in cases of murder, but the act was repealed in 2013.
Its appeal, however, was accompanied by a new law which included sorcery-related killings among crimes penalized by capital punishment, as well as aggravated rape and armed robbery.
Despite this, witch hunts and the murder of supposed witches continues, with many police failing to stop the violence; the country's Constitutional and Law Reform Commission estimates 150 sorcery-related deaths annually. Many cases go unreported due to non-collaboration with officials, and fear of reprisal.
In light of this trend, Bishop Orowae thanked local administration and police for recently saving three defenseless women from mob violence in Teremanda, a village of Enga province.
“God has given us this life as a gift and we should respect it, and only God can take it back,” Bishop Orowae further explained. “He does not give us permission to take away the lives of others, even the unborn, the disabled, the criminals, the unwanted, the sick.”
In January, the Church in Papua New Guinea held a seminar to tackle the epidemic of sorcery-related violence, at which Fr. Franco Zocca, an Italian missionary and sociologist, told attendees that “only scientific enlightenment and a massive education effort can help overcome sorcery beliefs” in the country.
Fr. Zocca has coordinated a four-year research study on sorcery in Papua New Guinea. The aim of the conference was to explore the Church's attitude toward magic and sorcery, as well as data collected by the Melanesian Institute, which studies indigenous cultures in the region.
The Church is working to provide education and catechesis to indigenous Papua New Guineans to help them overcome superstitious beliefs.
“It gives a bad image of this country and its people,” Bishop Orowae concluded. “Let’s promote the good side of our lives and country, and do away with the bad practices.”

Reopening Aropa Airport to create new opportunities on Bougainville

Prime Minister's Media

The opening of the Kieta (Aropa) Airport is another vital part of Papua New Guinea’s

national infrastructure that will create new opportunities for the men, women and

children of Bougainville.

Speaking at the airport re-opening ceremony alongside Government Ministers and

members of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) last Friday, Prime

Minister Peter O’Neill highlighted the achievement of reopening the airport as part of what he said was a bright future for Bougainville.

“This is a beautiful day for Bougainville and for Papua New Guinea,” O’Neill said to

around 3,000 people attending the opening at the airport.

During his visit to Bougainville early this year, O’Neill had assured the people that

the National Government would work closely with the ABG to re-open the Aropa Airport.

“In January, I announced I was here to honor the National Government’s commitments

and deliver important projects to bring Bougainville back to what it once was,” O’Neill said.

“The National Government’s main focus is to bring services to and improve the welfare

of our people, especially, the generation who missed out completely.”

He said this was a very important day for Bougainville and Papua New Guinea because

 23 years of non-air service to Arawa.

“This infrastructure can now effectively serve the people of Bougainville,” O’Neill

said.

 

“The welfare of the people of Bougainville is a priority for our Government.”

He thanked the National Airports Corporation and the board of directors of Air Niugini,

Airlines PNG and Travel Air for a job well done and for their support towards the

government.

He also acknowledged the good work and commitment of past and present leaders and

apologised for governments losing focus along the way.

“This was to honor what our former leaders, like the Late Sir William Skate, former ABG

President Joseph Kabui, Sir Moi Avei amongst others, set out to do," O'Neill said.

 

“This government has renewed national government commitments and will continue to

honor them."

He said after forming government over two years ago, the National Government strongly

agreed to re-engage and strengthen relations with Bougainville.

 

O’Neill also assured the people that the National Government would continue to

honor every word in the peace agreement.

PM calls on detractors to engage in mature debate

Prime Minister's Media  

Ongoing positive reporting of Papua New Guinea’s economic growth and improvements in living conditions are changing the image of the nation around the
world, according to Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill.
He says the facts speak for themselves and there is no doubt that Papua New Guinea has changed from the “bad old days” when most reporting about the nation was negative.
O’Neill has further called on the Opposition and other detractors to play a positive role in nation building and not seek to undermine economic growth.
He said positive assessments in international media about growth in the nation, including a recent report by the Oxford Business Group, is changing the way people think about Papua New Guinea.
“Papua New Guinea is heading in the right direction because the country has put its faith in our government and the policy programme we have in place to improve lives,” O’Neill said.
“There is no doubt that we have an enormous amount of work still ahead of us, and the government is tackling these challenges in a careful and disciplined manner.
“Task-by-task, issue-by-issue we are dealing with problems that have festered through neglect over decades.
“We have placed an additional 800,000 children in school so that we now have 2,000,000 children receiving an education.
"These children are our doctors, engineers and leaders of the future.
“More people are have access to health care and this will keep our people alive for longer and hold families together.
“We have more police on our streets, more effective rehabilitation in our prisons and better funding for our judiciary.”
The Prime Minister said the New Year provides an opportunity for the Opposition and detractors outside the Parliament to participate in constructive debate on policy, instead of trying to run the economy down for their own political gain.
“As our country enters a new age I call on the Opposition to engage in mature and well-considered discussion about our growth and policy direction.
“I encourage and look forward to robust democratic debate and policy discussion, but let us see a new approach and work together for the future of our nation.”
The Oxford Business Group report provides an independent assessment of the Papua New Guinea’s economic growth and the policy approach of the government in
managing the economy, while also noting challenges to take into consideration.

(http://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/news/papua-new-guinea-steps-gas)

Western province to own 33% of Ok Tedi mine

Prime Minister's Media

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has announced that the people of Western province will take possession of 33% ownership in Ok Tedi Mine Limited (OTML).
NEC approved the free transfer of equity in OTML following consultation between landowners, Governor Ati Wobiro and Western province officials, and the National Government. 
The balance of the remaining 67% of OTML is owned by people of Papua New Guinea through the State.

“This decision is fair and just, and it will be of great benefit to the people of Western province following decades of neglect,” O’Neill said.

“The people of Western province have long suffered extensive  environmental  harm that has been caused by the Ok Tedi mine.

“It is important that affected communities are recognised and receive compensation, while at the same time efforts continue to improve environmental practices at the mine.
“Representatives from the CMCA communities, mine villages and the Western provincial government  will  be  holding  further  discussions  to  propose  how  the  33%  will  be distributed.

O’Neill said the management and board of OTML would be very independent with the State and Western province together appointing three board members, while the remaining four would be independent experts including the chairman, who must be a Papua New Guinea citizen.

“The board arrangements will be unique for any State-owned enterprise and this is aimed at improving  governance  and  ensuring  transparency  while  bringing  in  worlds  best  practice  to OTML.”
O’Neill said the Ok Tedi mine was unique and is the product of a bygone era of governance and corporate social responsibility.
“It was a different world when Ok Tedi was established, when respect for the environment and downstream health issues were not given the same level of concern as they are today,” he said.
“The unprecedented environmental harm has affected almost the whole of Western province. “We cannot change the past but we have the opportunity to create a brighter future for the
people of Western Province.
“The  government  is  committed  to  improving  the  living  standards  of  the  people  of  Western
province.
“For too long the people of Western province have suffered from treatable diseases and today are facing the challenge of multi drug resistant TB. This is not acceptable.”
O’Neill  said  people  in  Western  province  were  also  determined  to  be  given possession of the substantial amount of money held by the PNG Sustainable Development Program (PNGSDP) that was subject to an ongoing court hearing in Singapore.

“The Government wants to see the money being held by the PNGSDP returned to the people of Western province,” he said.

“That money should be put to use now to improve the living standards for the people of Western

province and not whittled away by people from outside the province.
“The money in the long term fund held by PNGSDP belongs to the people of Western province and it must be given to them.”
 
 

PNG PM dragged into corruption scandals

The Saturday Paper

Hamish McDonald

Papua New Guinea’s corruption scandals continue to dog its government, and threaten to envelop Prime Minister Peter O’Neill as he courts Australian investors.

Change comes from the skies in Papua New Guinea, fast-forwarding the arrival of the contemporary world into communities still deep in the cultures formed during millennia of isolation from all but warring neighbours.
In the 1930s it was Australian goldminers flying components of massive dredges into roadless valleys aboard rickety tri-motor planes, watched by near-naked tribespeople.
Last year it was oil major ExxonMobil, using huge Antonov jets to bring in 64-tonne vessels for a natural gas conditioning plant to a specially built 3.2-kilometre airstrip carved out of the jagged Southern Highlands, and local big men calculated the good times in Port Moresby and Cairns flowing from it.
ExxonMobil shipped its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) out to Japan in May, after spending $US19 billion on development. Next year this one project is expected to bring a jump in Papua New Guinea’s gross national product of 15 per cent to 21 per cent, and big oil companies are fighting for ownership of two more gas discoveries in the Papuan Gulf that could add further LNG projects.
It should be a triumphant time for Papua New Guinea and its prime minister, Peter O’Neill, who has led the country since wresting government from the ailing independence leader Sir Michael Somare in 2011 and then putting together a dominating coalition after national elections in 2012. Instead, O’Neill is manoeuvring in a fight for political survival.
When he took power, the former businessman, son of a colonial-era magistrate and his local wife, was hailed as a competent political manager who might get government finances ready to apply the billions of new tax revenues and dividends from LNG to services for the country’s nearly eight million people.
In his last spell as prime minister between 2002 and 2011, Somare had kept public finances in balance, but allowed massive plunder of forests by Malaysian and other loggers while politicians and cronies siphoned funds out of state enterprises and departments. A new study by PNG’s National Research Institute and the Australian National University (titled “A Lost Decade?”) has just reported that while primary school attendance, especially by girls, rose significantly over that period, public health clinics saw fewer people and had fewer medicines in 2012 than in 2002. The picture would be much worse but for the schools and health services run by churches.
Immediately on becoming prime minister in 2011, O’Neill appointed government lawyer Sam Koim to head a new anti-corruption team named Task Force Sweep. Staffed by police, legal and tax officials, it had powers to investigate, prosecute and seize the proceeds of crime. Soon the taskforce was busting open dozens of scams and sending senior politicians, public servants and business figures to the courts. Among them was former Somare government minister Paul Tiensten, sentenced to nine years’ prison in March this year for misappropriating funds.
By October 2012, Koim was reporting that about half of the 6.7 billion kinas (then $3.5 billion) allocated for development in the PNG budget over the previous three years had been lost through corruption. “Given the trend of corruption and seeing that there is nothing on the ground level to show for the expenditure of public funds, we have reason to believe that at least half of the budget we were investigating was wasted, mismanaged or stolen,” he said.
The fight has gone on, with 74 prosecutions launched so far out of some 150 investigations, and 270 million kinas recovered, Koim said last week. But by late 2013, Task Force Sweep arrived at an existential moment. “All this good work almost came to an end when we tried to touch the very person who appointed us,” Koim told The Saturday Paper.
The unit’s audits concluded that payments of 39 million kinas had been made to Port Moresby lawyer Paul Paraka’s firm over 2010 and 2011, while O’Neill was finance minister in the Somare government, for legal advice that had never been provided. A letter instructing officials to make the payment carried O’Neill’s signature. O’Neill says the letter is a forgery; an Australian forensic consultant found it to be authentic. In June, the taskforce obtained arrest warrants against O’Neill.
He had earlier moved to protect himself by appointing a police commissioner widely regarded as more sympathetic, Geoffrey Vaki. The commissioner refused to execute the warrants, while O’Neill replaced his attorney-general, and disbanded Task Force Sweep for acting out of “political” motivation.
The new attorney-general then “discovered” the Paraka payments were legal after all. But Vaki found himself under arrest by anti-fraud officials on a charge of perverting the course of justice. In a welter of cross-cases in the country’s top law courts since then, it has been ruled that Vaki had no power to cancel the warrants in this case and may be in contempt of the court that ordered them. While various appeals and cases continue, O’Neill remains untouched but is a lot closer to being taken in for questioning.
While this goes on, O’Neill battles accusation of wrongdoing on another legal front. The Ombudsman Commission, an independent investigation agency that preceded Task Force Sweep and works closely with it, found earlier this year that the prime minister had flouted regular procedures in obtaining a $1.3 billion loan from the Swiss-based bank UBS. The loan was to allow the government to buy a large shareholding in the Australian firm Oil Search, a partner in the ExxonMobil project and other petroleum discoveries.
The ombudsman and public prosecutor argued successfully in the Supreme Court to have the case referred to a leadership tribunal, an ad hoc panel of three judges (from Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand) that will have the power to dismiss, suspend or fine O’Neill if it finds he acted improperly. It is due to sit on January 26, but last week O’Neill launched a challenge to the prosecutor’s constitutional powers to refer him to such a tribunal. He also argues the loan was validly authorised by the cabinet and in the national interest. The challenge will be heard again next Tuesday.
On February 4, O’Neill emerges from the 30-month “grace period” since his swearing-in of freedom from no-confidence motions. He now has about 100 of the 111 members of parliament onside, but plotting may already have started with Somare quitting government benches over the UBS loan issue.
He also faces a more subdued economy, despite the one-time GDP leap. With the construction phase over, employment at the LNG project has fallen from a peak of 21,000 (including 8500 Papua New Guineans) to about 1000 specialists and security personnel. About 80 per cent of dividends will go to foreign shareholders, and for the first three years most of the PNG tax and dividend flow is committed to repaying borrowings, with government debt and liabilities having doubled to nearly 50 per cent of GDP under O’Neill.
The PNG Treasury forecasts growth back to 2.7 per cent in 2016. This may be the longer-term outlook barring new LNG projects or a sustained rise in the prices of coffee, copra, cocoa and palm oil on which the non-subsistence village economy is based. The PNG economy remains, as Paul Barker of Port Moresby’s Institute of National Affairs puts it, a “development paradox” of world-class resource projects and a population with some of the worst welfare indicators in Asia thanks to poor investment in education, health and police.
Juggling his economic and political problems, O’Neill has just announced a budget for 2015 that cuts back overall spending to allow debt repayment, while increasing the discretionary funds allocated to each MP to hand out in electorates − an entrenchment of pork-barrelling that further undermines state delivery of services.
In a talk last week to a well-attended PNG Mining and Petroleum Investment Conference, O’Neill tried to talk up the investment climate, somewhat damaged by his abrupt September 2013 takeover of the environmentally troubled Ok Tedi gold and copper mine from a trust chaired by Australian economist Ross Garnaut.
As for Task Force Sweep, it, too, went to the courts and obtained a stay against its abolition. But its days seem numbered. “We haven’t got any funding all of this year; we’ve survived on funds carried over from last year,” Sam Koim said. “Now we are running dry this month.”
As O’Neill talked to a packed room of businessmen in Sydney, Koim was in Canberra seeking support for his beleaguered taskforce. He complains that so far Canberra’s agencies have been passive in preventing the flow of corruptly gained funds from Papua New Guinea into Australia, which he has previously called “PNG’s Cayman Islands”. With the Abbott government relying on Port Moresby’s co-operation for its Manus Island detention camp, O’Neill seems to have protected himself on that flank, too. And some of the possible alternative leaders are much more contentious, such as former deputy prime minister Belden Namah.
Papua New Guinea meanwhile continues for the third year at 145 out of 175 countries in Transparency International’s ranking of perceived corruption, and the World Bank’s annual ranking on the “ease of doing business” has Papua New Guinea slipping 22 places since 2011 to 133 out of 189 countries this year.
Its eight million people, growing at a remarkable 3.1 per cent a year, surely deserve better.

Former BP Group E&P CFO joins InterOil board

Energy Global

InterOil Corporation has appointed Dr Ellis Armstrong, former Chief Financial Officer of BP Group's global exploration and production business, as a non-executive director.
Dr Armstrong, 57, is also a non-executive director of Lamprell plc, a diversified engineering and contracting company that is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and Lloyds Register.
InterOil Chairman Chris Finlayson said Dr Armstrong, who would join the board from 1 January 2015, had more than 30 years of international oil and gas experience covering strategy and operations, major integrations, acquisitions and disposals and government relations.
In a long career with BP, Dr Armstrong ran the company's technology group, was the group's Commercial Director and had senior operational roles in the Caribbean and Latin America, Venezuela, Alaska and the North Sea.
He was BP's representative on advisory boards to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Institute of Americas, and was executive sponsor of BP's relationship with Imperial College, London.
Dr Armstrong, a civil engineer from Imperial College, also has a business degree from Stanford University.
Mr Finlayson said Dr Armstrong had a deep background in operational, technical, commercial and financial roles.
"He brings particular strength in analysis, has run significant businesses and regions for BP, and has had considerable exposure to BP's audit committee," Mr Finlayson said.
"Dr Armstrong is an ideal appointment as we continue to transform InterOil into a leading oil and gas explorer and developer in the Asia-Pacific.
"His skills and experience will be invaluable as we continue development of the Elk-Antelope LNG project in Papua New Guinea."

Adapted from press release by Joe Green

Published on 11/12/2014