The Leprosy Mission PNG and Women’s Micro Bank at Kalo Village in Rigo District

ROSA KOIAN

PORT MORESBY - More than 20 people living with leprosy and other disabilities opened bank accounts with the Women’s Micro Bank here in December.

This followed the signing of a memorandum of agreement between The Leprosy Mission PNG (and the Women’s Micro Bank Ltd in November.

The Leprosy Mission is in the second year of implementing its sustainable livelihoods development project supported by New Zealand Aid, which has a micro-credit component.

The agreement gives the opportunity for those affected by a curable disease to participate in micro enterprise projects.

Over the years, the Mission has played a key role in supporting the Ministry of Health to manage leprosy in Papua New Guinea.

In 2017, its focus changed to a development approach. Through this project it wants to give leprosy-affected communities the opportunity to increase their income levels and be included in the current financial inclusion plan for the region.

Learning how to retain savings is one of the main thrusts of the project. Many people in PNG, including those affected by leprosy, do not save money and therefore have difficulties accessing medical care, education and transport services.

This project wants to help change this, by encouraging more people to participate in income generating activities and in saving some money in a bank.

Through this partnership with the Women’s Micro Bank, leprosy-affected families will be able to save money and have access to credit if they wish to start or upgrade income generating activities.

The seed-fund credit will be managed by Women’s Micro Bank that has a vision to reach out to the informal sector providing access to micro credit and micro savings as well as related training.

“Savings should be the first expenditure of income not the last,” says Gunanidhi Das, general manager of Women’s Micro Bank.

“Breaking cultural barriers by providing access to finance to women entrepreneurs will bring economic prosperity in the informal sector and increase livelihood for under privileged families,” says Ricky Mitio, chairman of Women’s Micro Bank.

“This new venture is one of the first of its kind in PNG, which is enabling small-business owners who have leprosy and disability to access micro-finance loans like any other small-business owner in PNG,” says Natalie Smith, country leader for The Leprosy Mission PNG.

Cadet patrol officers new to Papua New Guinea watch police parade at Sogeri in March 1950

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - The last batch of Australian kiaps in Papua New Guinea was appointed in the early 1970s. They were the tail-enders of a fraternity that shared a working experience that was decidedly uncommon in modern times.

As a loose cohort they continue to share camaraderie through continued interaction at reunions and other social events and through social media, where they interact on their own website and through other social media sites like PNG Attitude.

A significant majority of them maintain an abiding interest in Papua New Guinea.

There’s nothing unusual about that, people with common experiences tend to be drawn to this kind of sentimentality and nostalgia and often gather together to remember and celebrate their past and discuss what has happened since then.

What is unusual about the old kiap’s endeavours however is the nature of that shared experience and the continued relevance it has to the place where it occurred.

There are, of course, other groups that worked in Papua New Guinea, teachers, agricultural officers and the like, but they very rarely had the all-encompassing experience of governance that the jack-of-all-trades kiaps had.

Many of the old kiaps would argue that there is a real and untapped value in their comprehensive experience that could be put to good use if those in power were prepared to listen.

That the powers that be and potential recipients of this potentially rich bounty resolutely fail to even acknowledge that such a resource exists is a continuing matter of chagrin for many of the old kiaps.

The operative word here is ‘old’. Even those tail-enders from the early 1970s are now reaching their final decades. Their use by date is visible on the horizon.

The reports of deaths of ex-kiaps is now a regular occurrence; not many months go by without another making their final journey to the patrol post in the sky.

Whereas such passings were once greeted with surprise, the responses now have a hint of the inevitable about them.

A casual enquiry from one kiap to another about the state of their health these days usually gets a response something like ‘still vertical and breathing, how about you?’

History is replete with the incidence and unpleasant consequences to societies of ignoring the wisdom of their elders.

It begs the question, why does society insist on burying its wisdom over and over again?

And make no mistake, wisdom does come with age.

As people age they tend to reassess their lives and experiences over and over again in a process similar to the trendy de-cluttering of houses so popular among the neo-materialists.

This constant refining and shedding of the superfluous, irrelevant and inconsequential, both intellectual and physical, results in some pretty clear thinking about what is important in life and how best to achieve it.

But if you’re an apparatchik in Canberra why would you listen to a bunch of old beer-sodden colonial farts?

Or if you’re a politician in Port Moresby why would you listen to a bunch of old white male colonials?

Why indeed?

Ruth Kaupa

FRANKIY KAPIN | My Land, My Country Blog | Edited extracts

LAE - I was woken up on the morning of Sunday 12 January by a phone call and a familiar voice.

At around 5am, 21-year old Ruth Kaupa had lost her battle to breast cancer at Angau hospital.

Ruth was surrounded by her immediate family, close relatives and friends holding hands as she slowly closed her eyes.

I met Ruth last year around June-July, interviewing her and her parents at their home at Kamkumung in Lae.

I am not a cancer specialist or some medical practitioner. I began reporting about cancer in PNG three years ago and over that period acquired some understanding of the problem and the treatment options available in PNG.

Some cancers are treatable.  But in PNG treatment is lacking due to inadequate facilities.

If cancer is detected early, the chances of cure are better.  Late diagnosis often results in death.

There is also a big 'cancer awareness gap' in PNG even though fundraising drives are held in its name every year.

The PNG National Cancer Centre located at Angau Hospital is managed from Port Moresby and is struggling to get a permanent radiation oncologist since the last full time oncologist Dr John Niblett passed away in 2017.

The cancer centre, established some 50 years ago, had its in-patient wards demolished earlier this month paving way for a replacement.

Those few years of reporting about cancer took a toll on me as I blamed the authorities for their lack of attention and lack of immediate action.

Walking amongst the cancer patients in their wards was like entering a war-torn hospital filled with bomb blasted soldiers.

The pain is so visible in the patients’ eyes; some don't complain anymore.

The day I met Ruth changed my approach. I told Ruth and her parents that it was no point playing  the blame game and waiting. We had to help ourselves.

If the ships don’t come to shore, let's swim to them.

And so with the backing of the Lae media, we took on the challenge of the Ruth Kaupa medical appeal.

Above all, it was Ruth that made the decision to be the face of a media campaign for better cancer treatment in this country. Not just for her but for every other women and girl out there.

Ruth’s father, Brasty Kaupa, said, "Although Ruth is gone, there are other Ruth’s out there and this is the story  of cancer that every women needs to know and be prepared."

On Sunday after receiving the news of Ruth’s passing, I sat down trying to find the starting lines to my story. It was blank, blank and blank. Not even some two to three words connected.

The sentence construction took me all day and all night until 3am the next morning. Still not a one-line sentence but just one word, ‘guilt’.

The days of hopeless slumber following Ruth’s passing really pushed me to question myself, ‘What did I do wrong? Had I failed Ruth?’

My grief has haunted me because I chose to take on the fight instead of expecting someone else to do it.

Would I have walked away a long time ago, I never would have come along this road with Ruth. But there are others like Ruth yet to discover cancer. Others have passed away or are now in pain and silently suffering as they wait to die.

But for how long will this go on? Something needs to be done!

Authorities continue to point out that cancer affects a minority of the country’s population.

Cancer treatment is very expensive. And only a small minority can help themselves.

I remember Ruth’s determination and spirited smile.  She was ready and wanted to take on the fight. To be the face of the campaign.  At the back of her mind, it was the path PNG must take.

What many saw was that we were raising funds for Ruth to go for radiotherapy treatment overseas. Of course, it was.

We were running against time and everyone was being  pushed to the limits and it was Ruth’s parents, Brasty and Bogel Kaupa, who stood out most.

It's what every right thinking father and mother would do for their sick child.

Maybe I got too close. I admit that I put myself in the shoes of Ruth’s family asking myself, what if that was my daughter, my sister or my mother? What would I do?

You tell me if I was wrong and you may be forgetting what it is like to be human.

All along, Ruth showed great determination. She was intelligent, respectful and knew what was coming.

Her sincerity and appreciation to everyone who assisted her was overwhelming.

It was her determination to make it known to every woman and girl in PNG that the cancer services in this country are inadequate.

Ruth is the second cancer patient I tried to help seek further treatment overseas. To be honest I was not looking forward to what happened. I had already been there and it was not happening again.

But visiting Ruth’s parents during the week made me accept Ruth’s fate though she didn’t deserve to lose her life in such way. Only God has the answers.

What you and I and everyone need to get out from Ruth’s struggle is not her death, but the life she lived.

Last year businessman and former Madang governor Sir Peter Barter spoke following the passing of Dr Niblett. He said back when he was health minister the cancer unit was run down. He said there was reluctance within the Health Department to support it.

“When you consider the money being used to build freeways, hotels and fund events mainly in Port Moresby, it is hard to come to terms when there is a real need for specialised treatment in PNG, particularly outside Port Moresby,” Sir Peter said.

“This does not just cover cancer, the shortage of dialysis machines is another concern along with the trained specialists and consumables needed to provide treatment in PNG where many people have the choice of dying earlier or if they can raise money, seek treatment abroad," he said.

Take a walk through the Angau cancer wards and see the patients.  The pain and suffering of cancer is immense, intolerable.

They are family members, friends and loved ones who need our support and the same care as any other patient.

Coming this far with Ruth and her family will forever be my guilty grief.

Rest in Peace, Ruth Kaupa.

RAYMOND SIGIMET

DAGUA - Twenty years ago, in the months leading up to the new millennium, Y2K bug hysteria gripped Papua New Guinea and the world.

Rumours sped around the world that money would be useless, planes would drop from the sky, nuclear warheads would be set off and that the Y2K bug could mark the end of Times.

There was a general sense of fear and apprehension as computer experts said that, when the date changed to the new millennium, computers with old hardware and programs would not recognise the calendar change and would register the new year not as 2000 but as 1900.

At the time, I was in my final year of secondary school at Kerevat in East New Britain.

Since computers were not as common as they are now and we had never heard of the internet, my understanding of what was happening was minimal. But I did learn that Y2K was a number based word meaning Year 2 Kilo, or Year 2000.

At that time, terms like anti-virus, hard drive, software, word document, floppy disc, email and other jargon were not part of our language. Even computer classes were not part of the school curriculum back then.

Information about the Y2K bug came from newspapers, radio or word of mouth.

In our dormitories, theories about the Y2K bug did the rounds, all we understood was that this posed a big problem and a great deal of confusion and panic.

The PNG government pulled together its limited resources and got additional funding from Australia to fix the Y2K bug in its computers and it made public statements on how it was progressing in fixing the problem.

News headlines of efforts by world governments to fix the Y2K bug appeared in the local media. Developed countries were urging developing countries to be wary. As the clock ticked towards the new millennium, countries were declaring they were Y2K ready.

But in PNG, the scaremongering and end-time prophesies went on unabated. People gave up smoking, cut down betel nut trees and filled the churches. A few said the computers would work just fine and the world would not come to an end.

On Friday 31 December, 1999, when the clock hands went into the new millennium, a few computer glitches were noted worldwide.

The US official timekeeper, the Naval Observatory, reported the date as 19100 on its website and the system for collecting small plane flight information failed in Japan.

Australian bus ticket machines failed, seven nuclear reactors in the US had minor glitches, South Korea summoned 170 people to court on 4 January 1900 and United States spy satellites transmitted unreadable data for three days.

In the aftermath, some people claimed a lot of money was made by companies exploiting the millennium bug and the scaremongering that came with it. It was argued, that regardless of how much money was spent by governments and businesses, the result was a fuss over nothing.

But computer specialist claimed the Y2K bug was real and that it had taken many people a lot of remedial to fix the flaws. They said the money was well spent because worse problems would have arisen if no fixes had been done.

Countries like South Korea, which spent little to none to fix the Y2K bug, were mentioned while America spent billions of dollars, yet both countries encountered the same minor problems fixed within hours.

The Y2K bug was major or minor, it was a global phenomenon. Computer specialists have since said that there will be another computer glitch similar to Y2K in the year 2038. The Y2038 problem is described as a computer systems fail that will affect how computers process information.

I hope this is fixed sooner than later. We do not want another repeat of the excessive cost and scaremongering that came with the Y2K.

DOUG ROBBINS

SPRINGBROOK - What was being a patrol officer in Papua New Guinea all about?

I was one for a short time from 1969 to 1973, probably having been influenced in 1957 by our scholarship (Year 8) prescribed book ‘Danger Patrol’ by Leslie Rees.

A good account is also found in James Sinclair’s ‘Kiap’ (1981) and the Ex-Kiap website on the internet is also enlightening.

But my own PNG adventure generally matched Eric Feldt’s description in ‘The Coast Watchers’, written in 1946:

“The district officer (likewise, the patrol officer) was responsible for all forms of governmental activity in his district. He was thus, with all local authority in his hands, a power in his district.

“Of course, he was subject to the law, and there was machinery for appeal from a district officer’s decision, but appeals are interminable and costly affairs in which the average man does not indulge.

The newspaper advertisement for patrol officers to which Doug successfully responded in 1969

“So the district officer exercised his functions of magistrate, chief of police, head gaoler, coroner, licensing authority, collector of customs, inspector of labour, land purchaser, local treasurer, even to the authority to order, summarily, the destruction of a diseased dog.

“The duties brought him in contact with all phases of life; as one said, ‘I have to be, like Caesar’s wife, all things to all men.’

“In particular, the district officer was arbiter of the relationship between Europeans and natives – to him the native came with any complaint of ill-treatment. He was the ‘kiap’, who had power to settle the matter.

“An able and tactful district officer kept the wheels of the machinery of everyday life running smoothly, but an incompetent one invariably set section against section so that he had a constant turmoil on his hands.

“On the district officer’s staff were cadets, patrol officers and assistant district officers, rising in rank in that order. Young men were selected as cadets, sent to a district for training and experience under the tutelage of an experienced officer, and then promoted to patrol officer after a term of about two years.

“As a patrol officer, the young man travelled around from village to village, maintaining law and order amongst the natives, accompanied by native police. As there were natives in all degrees of control, from those near the settlements who led an ordered existence, to those in recently explored country who lived in primitive savagery, the patrol officer got experience of native life in all its facets.

“In constant company with native police, he grew to know them, to know under what circumstances they would be courageous and the other occasions when, as the native puts it, his belly is water. With this experience came the habit of command.

“A patrol officer was called on to settle disputes, today in a village where the issue was the value of taro (a lily-like plant whose bulb is food), damaged by an intruding pig in a garden; next week, the peace terms between two villages which had been at war with each other for so long that the mind of man ran not to the contrary.

“Constant use gave him a good command of Pidgin English, the ‘lingua franca’ of New Guinea. Pidgin is a language in which a number of words are used in the order and manner in which a native thinks.

“So the patrol officer got experience, and with it, exercise. There are few roads in the area, and his work led him from village to village, sometimes on a passable walking track, sometimes ‘breaking bush’ through jungle, but always up one steep slope and down another, or through humid swamp or over hot kunai plain, or on the soft sand of the beaches.

“On patrol he lived hard, eating food carried with him, supplemented by game he could shoot or field fruits from native gardens. But he could not live too hard, or health would suffer - his body wracked and sweating under a palm thatch roof, far from help or comfort.

“Promoted to assistant district officer, he led much the same life but with greater responsibility. He still walked from village to village, and could not look to any end, even after promotion to district officer; for any district officer who did not himself go on patrol was soon  branded a ‘verandah kiap’ who did not know what went on in his own district.”

Annette and Doug Robbins at Uwe resthouse, Collingwood Bay, Tufi Subdistrict

I was promoted to assistant district officer two weeks before ‘going finish’ just prior to self-government being granted in 1973. Papua New Guinea’s independence followed in 1975.

Before going to Papua New Guinea I, with another 38 recruits, attended the four month assistant patrol officer’s orientation course at the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) at Middle Head in Sydney. It was mid 1969 – the year man first landed on the moon and the era of the Vietnam war, feminists and hippies.

Former district commissioner Fred Kaad was our mentor and the subjects included: history, geography, public administration, local government, law, anthropology, Pidgin English, first aid and physical education. I gained top marks overall for this course.

On arrival in Port Moresby, I stepped off the plane to be hit by a blast of hot air which I thought was from the jet engines. But, the engines were not running; this was the country’s normal air temperature with a light breeze coming across the bitumen tarmac.

After that initial shock, we spent five hot weeks at Kwikila near Port Moresby with Bruce Dunn running our induction course, learning the practical aspects of the job: surveying, maps, roads, bridges, airstrips, explosives, police, firearms, courts, jails, radio, reports and health.

In December we were posted to various districts – Drew Pingo and I were to go to the Northern District: its coastal plains, rivers and swamps rising sharply to high mountains.

In the early 1900s resident magistrate Monckton, commenting on the reputation of the district, wrote that “many officers preferred to resign rather than be sent there”.

On our fifth day there, we set off on our first trial patrol and over the next four years I spent one-third of my time on patrol, being confronted with most matters: census, elections, area studies, economic development, land investigations, cash crops, timber rights, labour, road construction, mechanics, relief work, carriers, hunting, rations, wells, latrines, disputes and political education. Also, we were commissioned police officers of the Royal PNG Constabulary.

One hot and beautifully clear day, I accompanied district local government officer Peter Thomas and a public works official on an aerial inspection of outstations and airstrips from Tufi to Wanigela then on to Safia via Wowo Gap.

We flew fairly close to a spectacular waterfall in the Goropu Mountains, where the peak of Mt Suckling rises to over 12,000 feet. This waterfall can be seen from Tufi Harbour, 80km away. We returned to Tufi over the Didana Range section of the Pongani-Safia Road that I had been clearing.

Landing at Wanigela, the heat was such that pilot Alan Woodcock couldn’t get the plane to stay down. It kept bouncing back up with the rising hot air until we almost ran out of strip before finally coming to rest safely.

Another experience was even more frightening. Pilots new to PNG had to do a familiarisation flight with someone experienced in the particular area. This new pilot had been checked the day before and apparently had learnt of the effect of hot air rising.

We departed early morning from Girua, a bitumen strip built by the Americans during the war, which was then the airstrip for Popondetta. A short time later we banked over Ioma station, crossed Tamata Creek quite low over the trees and lined up for the distant strip. Too far in the distance, I thought.

Then the stall buzzer frantically started. We just managed to make it to the emergency touch-down section of the strip – a bit rough and overgrown but at least we weren’t in the trees. Ioma is a grass strip which doesn’t get as hot as bitumen and, besides, it was still in the cool of day. The pilot had compensated for a non-existent uplift and almost ran out of air space.

Annette would sometimes go on routine patrols with Doug. Here (second from front) she paddles behind interpreter Randolph Gangai at Berubona in Tufi

Magisterial powers were granted to me on 8 November 1971. Prior to that, an expected role on patrol was to hold court in the villages. Punishment was equally unofficial:

Nine days into a lengthy patrol to the Lower Musa, a commotion broke out in front of us while taking census at Kinjaki. It was one time I really did fear for our safety. My police calmed everyone down and, after hearing the complaint, I ordered the ringleader to accompany the patrol so he could be dealt with back at the station. Having spent the next 22 days with us as an unpaid carrier, it was decided he had duly served his time.

A two month advanced patrol officer’s course in Port Moresby was normally a prerequisite to becoming a magistrate and, although my appointment had already been gazetted, I attended in September 1972, staying in a flat at the government Ranaguri Hostel, with my wife Annette and our few months old son.

Gus Bottrill receives his OAM from Dr Ken Michael, Governor of Western Australia, in 2008

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - When Angus Matheson ‘Gus’ Bottrill was awarded the OAM in September 2008, the citation read “for service to the indigenous community, particularly through research and assistance with land title claims”.

It could have gone much further because as a soldier, kiap, court officer and advocate for the rights of indigenous people, he was a man of high values and exceptional dedication to his fellow humans.

Gus Bottrill has died in Perth at the grand age of 94. I knew him only in Rabaul in 1970, when he was a kiap engaged fully in the civil unrest at the time – a stocky man of avuncular demeanour and unflappable disposition.

Those times, which ended in the murder of a district commissioner, unsettled us all. For Bottrill, they would also have offended his sense of propriety about how human relationships should be conducted.

World War II broke out in 1939 and, as a student at Christian Brothers College in 1941, along with his mates Terry Murray and Ted Fitzgerald, Bottrill joined the air cadets. When they all turned 18 in 1942, his mates joined the RAAF and were killed as air crew gunners in Europe.

Bottrill’s parents had refused to give their written consent for him to join the RAAF, so in December 1942 he enlisted in the Army, soon transferring to the Australian Imperial Force to be trained to join the Engineers.

During this period he and an Indonesia soldier, Johannes Rentor from the South Moluccas became firm friends. Bottrill learned some Malay and Rentor told him a lot about his island, his work in Dutch Papua as a Catholic catechist and his hopes for self-government for the Moluccas after the war. It was Bottrill’s introduction to the life of people beyond his own culture.

This was soon augmented by his experiences during further training with No 4 Field Survey Company based in Western Australia: “I was employed in field work at Galena. While at Galena I saw for the first time an aboriginal camp and it left an indelible and disagreeable impression in my mind.

“At the end of the railway line was a vermin proof fence and there were a number of lean-tos of corrugated iron and other materials. The fence was the lean-tos support that sheltered several large aboriginal families.”

WX36764 Sapper AM (Gus) Bottrill in 1944 (RASCA)

In 1944, his unit embarked on a US Navy troop transport and proceeded through New Guinea to Morotai in Borneo to prepare maps of the area in preparation for the Australian landings there.

"When the war ended in September 1945, volunteers were sought for a Liberation Battalion to be formed to go to Ambon to disarm the numerous Japanese there. Bottrill joined them.

“We were received by the townspeople as heroes. They invited us to their houses in the daytime to partake of such things as cinnamon tea, fried sweet potato slices sprinkled with palm sugar or fried bananas.

"In early 1946, when the Australian troops were withdrawn a crowd of several thousand pushed through the barriers and occupied the wharves and shouted and cried and sang as we pulled away.

"We could only say that our business was finished and we were going home. I was very young and impressionable, I guess, but I have never felt so moved by such a spontaneous farewell.”

Bottrill was then sent as a reinforcement to the Engineers, carrying out post-war road re-construction near Nonga in Rabaul. There in April 1946, he learned of his father’s death, taking three days to get home to Perth. Soon after he was hospitalised with malaria and discharged from the Army in July.

He was accepted for a job with the Papua New Guinea Provisional Administration as a patrol officer and attended the 5th Short Course at the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA), proceeding to PNG soon after New Year’s Day 1947.

“Administrator JK Murray invited us all, some 30 or 40 men, mainly ex-servicemen, to drinks at Government House, Port Moresby. The single drink provided was one warm gin squash! He delivered a welcoming address.

“Part of his speech said we would be judged as successful in our job if Independence was achieved before we reached eligibility for a pension. My career by that measure was a success, as my job ended in 1974 as Independence approached.”

It was the beginning of a notable peacetime career in which he served with great distinction the indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea and Australia.

I hope one of Gus Bottrill’s other comrades might pick up the stories of his eminent PNG and Australian careers.

PISAI GUMAR | My Land, My Country Blog

LAE - It is not a walk for faint hearted humans this trail beginning at Torowa in the Upper Erap area of Nawaeb District in Morobe Province and into the interior to Kokosan and Damet villages. A journey of more than two days.

So I just walked, walked and walked. Up and down steep mountain slopes, around sheer cliffs, across fast flowing streams rushing towards the Erap River and crashing against huge boulders to eventually marry with the mighty Markham River.

I walked through green coffee gardens decorated by red berries, the aromatic perfume from newly blooming flowers filling my nostrils.

The aroma kept up my strength and kept my mind awake, although my ankles were exhausted. Toenails and the soles of my feet rubbed against the rocky pathways causing blisters and some bleeding. My feet trembled and, when krusako leaves trapped my legs, my body felt like it should fall down.

Yet I walked on because I had some good reasons to keep me going.

First, to experience and explore the hardship of remote areas and to meet the people who struggle to live there.

Also to see the source of the mighty Busu and Erap Rivers that split and find their own ways to the coast - the Busu ending at Wagang (Sipaia) and the Erap spilling into the Markham River.

I also wanted to spend Christmas with the Kokosang people and to meet an elder I had written about two years previously (pictured).

Every day I read the two national daily newspapers and feel a hole in my kind heart when politicians make a mockery of the people saying, “The health delivery system is OK, drugs are OK, school materials are reaching schools, we’ve committed money to construct this road.”

In fact, the real picture depicts a life of struggle in our rural Papua New Guinea.

Many people have never seen a vehicle tyre, or even the tyre tracks in the mud.

You wonder what mothers do in difficult births, which aid posts they go to for family planning, where do kids go to school….

But, despite the odds, you will find church buildings in the middle of all these villages.

God bless my heart for Morobe and Papua New Guinea!

Fortunately, the whereabouts of the Maseratis are known (Natalie Whiting, ABC)

ROB TAYLOR | Wall Street Journal

PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea, an impoverished South Pacific nation known for jungles, crime and corruption, has a new problem since hosting world leaders in its ramshackle capital late last year.

Some 100 vehicles the government procured to ferry delegates around Port Moresby during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit have gone missing, officials say, along with computers, photocopiers and other office equipment.

Officials are pleading with their compatriots to track down the missing inventory, even offering an amnesty from arrest this month for anyone who returns the loot. A similar appeal in December turned up empty-handed.

“There are fire engines, buses, ambulances unaccounted for. You name it,” finance secretary Ken Ngangan said in an interview.

“At this stage we cannot say which ones are missing and which ones may be somewhere. The correct word I would say is ‘unaccounted for’—‘missing’ only in the sense they have not been returned.”

While the government hasn’t said how much it paid for the vehicles—which were used by APEC employees, contractors, police and security personnel—it had planned to sell them to help recoup costs of hosting the November gathering.

The International Monetary Fund put the price of the event at around $1 billion over three years, not an unusual amount for a country that needs to build facilities that can later be reused.

The mystery offers a window into the difficulties of governing a tumultuous state where 40% of its eight million people live on less than $1.25 a day and many communities lack running water and electricity.

Growth has slowed in recent years and falling natural gas prices have crimped tax revenue, forcing the government to borrow more, especially from China. Beijing donated 50 large buses, 35 minibuses and nine fire engines ahead of the summit, some of which are among those lost.

Paul Barker, an economist and executive director of the Institute of National Affairs, an industry-funded think tank based in Port Moresby, said the missing vehicles underscored the country’s challenges with mismanagement.

“The financial systems of the state are very weak, the asset registers are very weak, audits come out years late and are more a historic record than timely reports, and unfortunately there is no shortage of people willing to exploit that,” said Mr. Barker, who is on the board of anticorruption watchdog Transparency International. The group ranks Papua New Guinea 135th out of 180 nations for graft.

“Police are forced to hire cars because they don’t even know how many cars they have,” he added. “The concept of public assets is pretty loosely interpreted, and disillusionment in politics is high.”

Martyn Namorong, a political commentator and author on Papua New Guinea, said fire engines donated by Japan had found their way to a retail complex in the capital, where they were being used “to ferry women and kids with the shopping.”

“The government doesn’t even know where to send the cops to recover cars,” he said. Police didn’t return calls seeking comment.

It’s the latest blow to a country that had hoped to use APEC, which US Vice President Mike Pence and China’s Xi Jinping attended, as a diplomatic triumph and a springboard to draw in new investment.

Papua New Guinea took on hosting rights just as a $19 billion Exxon Mobil Corp. -led natural-gas project looked set to transform its economy.

But the gas project has proved lacklustre and APEC ended in acrimony as Chinese and US officials quarrelled over trade rivalries. Police rioted in Port Moresby as attendees jetted out, ransacking offices in a dispute over pay that spilled into looting in nearby suburbs.

Opposition lawmakers have said they plan to bring a no-confidence vote next month against the administration of prime minister Peter O’Neill, citing the country’s economic predicament. Treasurer Charles Abel, delivering the budget in November, said the government was entering the year in an improved position as resource prices recovered, with the IMF predicting 3.8% growth.

The APEC pay dispute lingers in the mystery of the missing vehicles. Local newspapers reported some workers and police were refusing to give back their wheels while promised allowances went unpaid. The government said after the rampage that it was working to pay police the outstanding money.

Meanwhile, some lawmakers raised eyebrows over what they considered excessive spending for the summit—notably, the 40 Maseratis and three Bentley limousines the government procured, among 1,000 vehicles in total.

“The bottom line is, we cannot afford to be this extravagant. Our country is broke,” opposition lawmaker Bryan Kramer said.

APEC vehicles have become a common sight since the summit, said Port Moresby-based security consultant Jason Fisher, with Maseratis photographed in rural villages packed with joy-riding locals.

“There were photos of two Maseratis in a village at the end of a big four-wheel drive track, so I don’t know how the hell they got them there,” said Mr Fisher, who provided security for Wall Street Journal staff covering the conference.

Mr Ngangan, the finance secretary, said the Maseratis and Bentleys had all been accounted for. “We did a stocktake today and those are all in good shape, with batteries. Not even one is missing,” he said.

He was confident that other missing equipment would be returned, including unmarked police SUVs and the fire engines.

“Perhaps people are keeping computers to write APEC reports,” Mr Ngangan said. “I can see some of the firetrucks right across from my office, so I’m keeping a close eye on those.”

Corporal Kasari inspecting police with kiap John McGregor at Olsobip, 1968

PHIL FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Lance Corporal Kasari RN1297 RPNGC was something of a legend in the Western District in the late 1960s.

If you had some rough patrolling to do in the rugged mountains or tumbling rivers in the northern part of the district Corporal Kasari was the man to have at your side.

If it was a routine patrol and you needed someone to run the patrol post while you were away Corporal Kasari was always your first choice.

Patrol Officer John McGregor summed up the good corporal in one of his patrol reports out of Olsobip in 1968:

“Very capable leader of the detachment, who set an excellent example for his subordinates by hard and energetic work. His knowledge of bush craft and initial contact work was very beneficial to the patrol. At this stage, recommendation for promotion to full corporal should be considered”.

I first encountered Kasari at Olsobip when I took over as Officer in Charge in 1969. Despite John’s recommendation he was still a Lance Corporal.

I worked with Kasari at Olsobip, Nomad River and at Balimo, down in the Gogodala swamps. Balimo was the last place I saw him and he was still a Lance Corporal.

At Balimo Corporal Kasari led the investigation into the famous red bicycle heist.

The bicycle belonged to a very feisty little Gogodala nurse at the mission hospital. It was her pride and joy and she was often seen pedalling it at breakneck speed along the muddy road between the mission and the airstrip.

And then one day the bicycle went missing.

The nurse turned up at the sub-district office demanding action. Corporal Kasari was immediately placed in charge and he set out in search of the precious wheely wheel.

This was a big deal in those days. It was something we counted as a major crime in the Western District, thus its carriage was entrusted to our best policeman.

True to his reputation Corporal Kasari returned to the office an hour or so later with the red bicycle.

It was covered in mud and its front wheel was horribly buckled. The eyes of the nurse flamed red to match her bicycle. She demanded legal satisfaction for this outrageous injustice.

The next day Corporal Kasari returned to the office with two very subdued local men in tow. They were immediately placed in protective custody and interviewed.

The nurse was then summoned for a hastily convened court case.

Corporal Kasari had interviewed each man separately and suggested that it was in their best interests to come clean.

I took off my patrol officer hat and donned my local court magistrate hat and heard the case.

It turned out that the two men had imbibed a few too many SP lagers and on the spur of the moment had decided to take the red bicycle for a joy ride.

They were having a great time. One was pedalling and the other was sitting on the handlebars when they crashed hard into a muddy embankment on the road.

With a badly buckled wheel they couldn’t go any further so they tossed the bicycle into the long grass and staggered off home to sleep off their drunken bender.

The court case went quite well. The two men were cowering in the dock as the nurse threw daggers at them with her eyes and Corporal Kasari explained how he had captured them and convinced them to own up to their heinous crime.

With two guilty pleas I considered a fit punishment. Judging by the expression on the nurse’s face, a public flogging perhaps? Maybe hard labour for life.

One thing bothered me though and just before I pronounced sentence I asked Corporal Kasari how he had identified the miscreants.

He looked me in the eye and said, “My grandmother told me.”

“Your grandmother? I didn’t know your grandmother lived in Balimo.”

“She doesn’t kiap, she’s long deceased and is buried in my home village. She came to me in a dream and told me who had stolen the bicycle, those two men, and I went and arrested them.”

Whoops I thought. Maybe Crown Law doesn’t require that little detail and I put my pen down.

I fined the two men ten dollars each and ordered them to buy the nurse a new front wheel. A suitable compromise I thought.

I don’t know what happened to Corporal Kasari in later years and I only thought about him when I set out to write a book about a fictional policeman many years later.

It was then that I realised how little I knew about him and how little I knew about all the other dedicated and loyal policemen I had worked with and relied upon over the years.

If I could go back in time I’d remedy that dilemma.

SIMON DAVIDSON

As a stone creates ripples on a lake,
So a teacher’s creates ripples,
In a student’s life.

Influence subtle and powerful,
To change thinking and life,
And mold profoundly.

Like a surgeon, the teacher,
Cuts minds with wisdom’s scalpel,
To light the intellect’s ancient fire.

In darkened minds a blazing light,
In tender hearts a longing hunger,
To satisfy the thirst for knowledge.

A teacher is a moral guide,
A teacher imparts understanding,
A teacher instills values.

The teacher’s words imprinted,
Deeply in the student’s mind,
As gold on marble pillars.

A teacher embraces eternity,
Often innocent and blind,
To influence’s extent and power.

SABL cartoon (PNG Exposed)

ARTHUR WILLIAMS

CARDIFF, WALES – Those foreign loggers are so entrenched with the spivs of the national government that the Special Agriculture and Business Lease (SABL) saga can never end well for Papua New Guinea’s ordinary villagers.

In his letter written in 2002 and published recently in PNG Attitude, the late Sam Gallaher said:

“On the day they (Rimbunan Hijau) got access to this country’s timber they signed a deal with UMW Komatsu tractors and purchased 700 major items of second hand plant from UMW owned by a Malaysian company. The then prime minister of this country picked up a consideration of K60 million.”

In late October 2017 I was in Kavieng when I was handed a copy of Government Gazette G161 notifying the gazettal of a SABL over almost 80% of my wife’s island of Lavongai for 99 years free of any land tax.

It was one of three SABL that had been foisted onto semi-illiterate rural people as a clever trick to get around the tighter legal requirements of a normal logging permit.

SABLs weakened Forestry Department’s regulation of the granting of leases because their intent was alleged to be agriculturally motivated.

This gave the developers the wonderful opportunity not to log according to normal forestry rules but clear fell for a monoculture of cocoa, rubber or most likely oil palm with all the inherent environmental dangers a single crop can experience.

Over the years coffee and cocoa borers spread worldwide, rhinoceros beetles in Indonesian palm oil migrated into South Pacific plantations and later banana Black Sigatoka. None of these serious agricultural impacts ever slowed down the rapacious loggers.

Logging in New Hanover (Act Now!)

I had arrived home to our place on south coast Lavongai in March 2017 and not one of my extended family was aware of the initial activities in various villages of groundwork preparing for a SABL lease to be granted.

On the day we saw that Gazette, emotions ran high among Lavongai wantoks, even threats of harming the elite spivs of their tribe who had so obviously sold out to the loggers.

But nothing eventuated except histrionics and all too soon the daily toil of just eking out an existence as subsistence farmers and fishing families overtook the almost unbelievable larger threat to the very roots of their community.

After all, the 20,000 people of the island knew their future, just like their past, was bound by thousands of years tradition involving their land.

They harboured an innocent belief that nobody could take it away from them.

Sadly for them, just as Chris Overland has written about the independence struggle in West Papua, the only practical way of stopping the exploitative caterpillar tractors, bulldozers and jinkers would have been a concerted uprising against their wantok elite-puppet spivs along with their foreign handlers.

Sadly also, from the prime minister down to the lowliest MP, there is no meaningful support for their plight, merely empty promises of, ‘We will stop the rot!’ as Act Now! regularly reminds us.

The loggers know how to pull the strings of national politicians and provincial police - they clear fell at will under the protection of those rotten SABLs.

There have been many reports of ill treatment of those brave souls who try to disturb the melodies of the chainsaw. The police joined at the hip to the loggers, with their food, shelter and even transport provided by the loggers.

Way back in 1972 I was on patrol to oversee the construction of a classroom complete with a new water catchment system in the Min River area of Lavongai.

I was there for a week and took my wife and two kids to enjoy a break from muddy Taskul. We all enjoyed the experience at our little camp alongside the clear waters of the Min.

In 2017 I felt like crying when Global Witness prepared a small booklet about PNG’s SABL destruction, particularly as it showed graphic pictures from both aerial and at ground level of what the logger has done to that region of beautiful Lavongai.

Rimbunan Hijau refuted the claims made by Global Witness saying, “however in this case all allegations raised by Global Witness are again without foundation.”

Log depot in a destroyed forest, Bewani SABL (Global Witness)

Global Witness said by way of reply that Rimbunan Hijau was “simply incorrect as scientists have used images taken by the Landsat satellite to keep tabs on logging activity in Southeast Asia and the Amazon for more than a decade, and they’ve published their analyses in peer-reviewed scientific journals.  We can see the illegal activities in question directly on the imagery.”

Yet daily the SABL log ships leave PNG shores for the factories of Asia. The corrupt leaders of PNG have forgotten, or perhaps conveniently ignored, the fifth Goal of the Constitution: ‘Traditional villages and communities to remain as viable units of PNG society and for active steps to be taken to improve their cultural, social, economic and ethical quality.’

Having lost traditional control over your land for three generations does nothing to honour that fifth goal.

The river of plastics and other rubbish penetrates the Gabagabada

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

PORT MORESBY – The Waigani swamp is a freshwater swamp known in the Motu language as Gabagabada or Big Swamp.

It stretches from Gerehu Stage 6, a contour north of Port Moresby, to 8 Mile, an area in the north-east of the city.

In those nostalgic days, just before Europeans invaded and paved the way for Asians and other people to migrate to Port Moresby, the Waigani swamp was a Garden of Eden to the Motu-Koitabu people.

It was home to edible fish species like the tilapia, gold michaels, stoneheads and eels. It was also a sanctuary for wild pigs, magani, deer, crocodiles, snakes, swans and many different species of birds.

As Port Moresby expanded, the city authorities decided to pipe some of the city’s sewage to the Waigani swamp turning it into a boiling shit-cream quagmire topped with a brown foam.

Settlers who had migrated to the city from the highlands colonised the rest of the swamp where the scorching sun and the pangs of poverty dented their dreams.

The migrants were not idle. They tactically planted tubers, bananas and vegetables during the dry season using the lake to irrigate the crop and the yields were big enough for them to make ends meet in Port Moresby, which can be an unforgiving city.

In a ‘survival of the fittest’ melee, the Papuans were sieved out of the Waigani swamp and pushed to the coastal fringe or the inland.

A substantial proportion of Port Moresby residents now get food from the fishing and gardening in and around the Waigani swamp whose product is sold at the markets.

However, the bounty of the swamp has been ruined by the invasion of plastic which Port Moresby seems incapable of managing.

Rubbish-filled city drain

The amount of plastic that was ferried to the peat lands during the rainy seasons has engulfed the precious swamp.

Every dig with a spade strikes a stratum of plastics buried under the soil making gardening difficult. A typical gardener labours to extract many huge heaps of plastic which are then to burned or otherwise disposed of before planting.

Papua New Guineans - learned or uneducated - have a tendency to use drains and waterways as rubbish bins.

The waste collection system of the city is disordered, worsening the tsunami of plastic inundating Waigani swamp.

The plastic affects aquatic life as well as food gardens and has created an emergency situation.

People are living in a plastic age and are surrounded by plastic products that are easy to get and easy to toss away.

It is estimated that eight million tonnes of plastic enter the ocean every year with plastic bags taking 20 years to decompose, plastic bottles 450 years and fishing lines 600 years.

Our oceans are being compromised by plastic pollutants – from huge areas of floating plastic waste to dead whales and other marine creatures with bellies full of plastic.

In Waigani swamp, fragments of different forms of plastic waste have been found in the gills and stomachs of gold michael fish and eels.

Furthermore, people know very little about the impacts of micro-plastic on ecosystems.

Micro-plastics are small barely visible pieces of plastic - fragments less than five millimetres in length that can also be ingested into the human body as well as seeping into soil, floating in the air and posing a threat to animal and human health.

Most marine pollutants originate on land where rivers and floods transport plastic waste to the sea due to inadequate disposal and handling of landfill, industrial and general waste.

To prevent plastic from ending up in the oceans, awareness must start on land to change people’s behaviour.

Almost all research on plastic pollutants in water systems focuses on oceans but the biggest problem is plastic that ends up in freshwater ecosystems such as the Waigani swamp.

Everyone needs to think about designing new ways of dealing with this problem.

This includes consumers who must to become conscious of and accountable for their actions.

Papua New Guineans need to be worried and, more usefully, enlightened about the plastic that ends up in the ocean, rivers and lakes including our priceless Gabagabada, the Waigani swamp.

PAUL OATES

GOLD COAST – As a kiap in the 1970s, I assisted the Lutheran Mission with one of the first herds of cattle introduced into the Menyamya Sub District.

The cattle drive started at the Bulolo roadhead, traversed the mountains between the Bulolo valley and Aseki Patrol Post before continuing along the Aseki-Menyamya ‘kiap road’.

I knew Menyamya already had some cattle and I’d heard there were some horses as the Assistant District Commissioner and his No 2 used to ride them.

The mission agricultural officer happened to mention that he’d been told by didiman Al Leong about a large mob of donkeys that were going to waste at Mumeng station. The donkeys had been imported into Papua New Guinea to alleviate the need for carriers on patrol.

But no one had been prepared to try this and the donkeys let pleasant lives just eating and breeding.

I radioed the Mumeng didiman and McCardles Transport in Wau and arranged to have two donkeys trucked to the existing roadhead in the Bulolo valley. I would take delivery of them at 1600 on the same day the herd of cattle arrived.

My idea was that I could drove the donkeys with the cattle and have an easier time getting them to Aseki. It was a good idea which didn’t turn out to be successful in practice.

I talked over my plan with Gunter, the Lutheran Missionary at Aseki, who expressed a wish to join me in the enterprise.

Two days before we were due to meet the cattle and the donkeys, we started along the road towards Bulolo with a limited number of carriers and cargo. I had with me the station Colt .38 revolver in case we had a problem and had to put an animal down.

The kiap road towards Bulolo soon petered out into a walking track and we camped overnight at one of the last villages on the Aseki side of the mountain divide. We requested that the villagers build a temporary yard so the cattle and donkeys could be held together on our return. I was apprehensive that a herd of cattle would make a mess of the village gardens.

There were some amazing sights in the mountains between Aseki and Bulolo. I don’t know what the altitude was however, after we stopped climbing, we had to traverse through extensive moss forests. As these were above the tree line, it must have been fairly high.

Unlike most areas in PNG, there was no fresh water or streams you could drink from and the only available water was held in the sphagnum moss that abounded in large clumps. If you grabbed a large handful of moss and squeezed it, you could get a cupful of dirty, brown water.

Gunter started to feel the effects of altitude sickness and a lack of bush patrolling. Several times we had to stop for him to get his breath and I started to look at my watch, given I had to meet McCardle’s truck and the donkeys at the Bulolo roadhead at 1600 to pay the driver.

Finally the track started to descend and in the distance we could see kunai. I told Gunter we didn’t have far to go but he only nodded as he was puffed out. At about 1500 we arrived at the first village on the Bulolo side and we asked directions to where the roadhead was.

Gunter said he couldn’t go on so I left him with some villagers to recover. Following the directions, I arrived at the roadhead to find it deserted. Phew! I was feeling a bit puffed m’self.

Then a feeling of apprehension came over me. The donkeys should be here by now. I started to walk along the road so to meet the truck coming towards me. After about 20 minutes, I came across a huge boulder in the middle of the road. Obviously, no vehicle could get past this so the true roadhead must be further on.

In a lather of sweat, I doggedly strode on and around the next bend was a village and McCardle’s truck. I said g’day to the couple standing alongside the truck and looked at my watch. It was 1600 exactly.

Some months later, after I was transferred to Wau, I heard how Mr McCardle had got rather a shock when a sunburned, mud-splattered apparition with a moustache with twirled up ends appeared in khakis, slouch hat, hobnailed boots and mud gaiters.

At the roadhead I wrote out a cheque, thanked the McCardles and took delivery of two donkeys. Never having looked after a large animal before, I was apprehensive but I needn’t have worried. Two more gentle and placid animals you would never find.

Donkeys come in two main colours, brown and grey, and there was one of each. They were both jenny’s, as the female donkey is called (the male is a jackass). The grey had the black cross on her withers, traditionally referred to as the mark of Christ, given that he reportedly rode a donkey into Jerusalem.

They were tethered and quietly cropped the grass around an old school building. I decided to leave them until the cattle arrived.

When the herd of cattle arrived there was immediate pandemonium. They were all young animals that went charging everywhere with the mission agricultural officers and herdsman constantly rushing around trying to keep the herd together.

By contrast, my donkeys were on their best behaviour and were able to be led away without a problem. Owing to excitable young cattle, it was late afternoon when we arrived at the last village on the Bulolo side, where Gunter waited for us. We decided to spend the night there in preparation for the drive over the mountains the next day.

Driving the cattle over the mountains was another day of mayhem. While the young cattle rampaged, the donkeys calmly plodded after me. They were very gentle beasts and only once was I trodden upon, when one slipped in the mud.

It was a different story with the young cattle. One heifer get too close to a donkey and it went up on its front feet and let fly with its rear hooves. It caught the heifer amidships with a ‘thump’ that knocked it off the track and down the hill.

However, the donkeys weren’t too keen about crossing some of the kiap bridges. On one small bridge, a donkey refused to cross. All we could do was put a long rope around its neck and about 30 of us pulled the rope.

The donkey’s neck began to stretch and telescope until I feared its head would come off. Just before that happened however, it decided we really did want it to cross and surged forward over the bridge leaving 30 men sprawled in the mud.

The second time I tried to use donkeys was at Sialum. The didimen in Finschhafen had two donkeys that were badly affected by grille (Tinea imbricata or skin pukpuk in Tokpisin) in the humid climate. This fungus had almost stripped the hair of one animal and it was suggested that the dry Sialum climate might do some good. Getting two donkeys to Sialum was another matter though.

We had two long wheel base Toyotas and the didiman was able to get the donkeys onto the tray and force them to lie down. Six labourers than sat, three a side and kept each donkey in place by resting their feet on its back.

The drive back to Sialum was almost uneventful except for crossing the Masaweng River. The technique was to put the vehicle into low ratio and keep the revs up. Lose the revs and you courted a stall and possible disaster. The water level was up to our knees and the current swift.

When we got to Sialum, I asked Ziroc Kalong, our resident medical authority, if we had any grille medicine? “Yes”, Ziroc said, “We’ve got a couple of gallons of the stuff.”

Many medicines were in those days issued to bush health centres in large plastic bottles and to ensure there were no mistakes, each type was colour coded. The skin fungus medicine (Salicylic acid) was coloured bright green.

Using two labourers and some paintbrushes from the government store, we painted the green marasin (medicine) on the donkey most affected. The poor thing had lost most of its hair and was a sorry sight. It was an even more sorry sight as it walked around the station, now a brilliant green.

But the marasin worked and within two weeks in a dry climate, its hair had started to grow and it never looked back after that.

PAUL FLANAGAN | PNG Economics

CANBERRA - PNG’s economic statistics have been corrupted. Even the most basic economic statistic of “how big is the PNG economy” has been manipulated to tell stories convenient to the O’Neill/Abel government.

An extraordinary gap of 18% has opened between measurement of the size of the economy (‘gross domestic product’ or GDP) by the PNG government compared with measurements by independent outside observers, led by the International Monetary Fund.

Half of this gap (shown in the table at right) emerged in 2015 when PNG’s own National Statistics Office (NSO), with assistance from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), said the economy was actually 9% smaller than claims by the PNG treasurer.

The gap in this most basic economic measure will be 34% by 2023. Specifically, the PNG government claims the PNG economy will reach K125 billion while the IMF estimates it will more realistically reach 93 billion in that year.

The NSO 2015 GDP figure was released on 9 March 2018 - a date that marks the clearest point from which the government started manipulating statistics, although there have been questionable practices in the past.

The initial NSO release included only high level GDP information but indicated more details would be provided shortly. This never happened. Apparently, 2016 GDP data was also prepared with ABS assistance. This also has never been released.

The official attempt to explain the 9% difference in 2015 is lamentable and filled with basic errors.

The blame is put on a new ‘price index’. However, a price index is not used when determining nominal GDP and the 9% gap is nominal GDP. A price index is used for determining real GDP where differences in price methodology can have an impact.

Also, the government was happy to use the National Statistics Office price index for the eight years 2007-14 when it was politically convenient. But it didn’t want to use the same price index for the ninth and tenth years of 2015 and 2016 when the results were politically inconvenient.

The PNG government in the past has tried to use the involvement of the Australian Bureau of Statistics to boost its economic credibility – and it did so again in its 2019 budget. However the IMF notes “the ABS recently suspended its program due to increasingly uncertain NSO leadership and management, which threaten its current operations”.

In other words, the ABS felt there was a need to walk away to protect its own integrity.

So why would the O’Neill-Abel government want GDP figures higher than those provided by the NSO and ABS?

Higher GDP figures are extremely convenient for the government. Specifically:

• They avoid the embarrassment of admitting PNG had a serious recession in the key parts of its economy in 2015 – and a mild recession in 2016
• They hide the fact the government is breaking the law by having a debt to GDP ratio higher than 35%; and
• A higher GDP growth figure in the out-years counters the PNG opposition’s call for an improvement in PNG’s economic growth rate.

The growing errors and half-truths in PNG’s economic statistics can no longer be explained away simply by technical errors.

The pattern is clearly one of manipulating figures to fit the government’s economic narrative. The credibility of PNG’s economic statistics – whether the size of the economy, economic growth rates, employment levels or budget outcomes – has plummeted.

Let’s call a spade a spade - the corruption of PNG’s political system has spread to its economic statistics.

I predict that future official PNG government figures will indicate, no matter what the actual truth, that the 2018 budget exceeded its targets and that growth is more positive.

This probably means that the government’s internal over-optimistic narrative based on false figures will limit action on underlying economic issues such as a mispriced exchange rate, poor micro-economic policies such as growing protectionism, dangerous approaches towards increasing foreign commercial debt to over 50% of public debt, and ignoring business concerns about recent anti-investment regulation.

Greece went down a similar path of manipulating its economic statistics to hide growing budgetary and other problems in Europe. It did not end well.

Given its current leadership, possibly it is not that surprising that PNG is heading down a similar slippery slope where statistics give way to political convenience.

I fear the outcomes will be worse than the Greek experience. PNG’s institutions will struggle to turn the economy around when it is so far off course and its economic compass of genuine statistics has been so seriously corrupted.

Kundiawa market

PHILIP KAI MORRE

KUNDIAWA - Deviant behaviour is defined as behaving contrary to or outside the moral and ethical guidelines or rules in society. Deviants are people who break rules and often act abnormally.

Deviant youths are manipulators who con others; they tell lies, cheat, are aggressive and violent, and steal. They involve themselves in crime because they don’t know the difference between lawful and unlawful, right and wrong, moral and immoral.

Juvenile delinquency associated with drug abuse is a serious problem that undermines the fabric of our society. We live in constant fear that our security is at risk because there is no social cohesion, customary laws and morality to control the aggressive behaviour of young people.

They have a tendency to destroy property and freely take things from others. In towns, police are helpless and can’t do much to stop these problems. In fact, there are far too many good people who do nothing to stop the problems.

Contemporary youth culture has developed a tendency to abuse alcohol and drugs resulting in the rise of crime which puts a great burden on themselves, their families and the community. Today’s youth problem is complex and there are many structural and underlying issues. It is calamitous and requires intervention programs and new strategies to manage it.

The youths drink and take drugs to cope with feelings of uselessness in the community and see no meaning in life. They feel rejected and don’t feel part of the community. They lack self-confidence and self-worth. They manipulate others and claiming to have authority over others.

There is much drinking in villages and towns because the social environment is not properly controlled by community leaders, including the police. The whole community tends to be involved in heavy drinking and drug use. It is unmanageable.

Like any PNG town, Kundiawa is full of unemployed youths, psychopaths, street kids, street sellers, drug dealers, street preachers, pickpockets, beggars, prostitutes and parasites.

The whole town of Kundiawa has become a market place with rubbish everywhere and town authorities and police seem powerless to do anything about it.

On street corners and in public places you can see youths drinking, smoking and gambling. Some sell plastic bottles filled with ethanol or home brew alcohol for K5 or K10 a container. You can see youths selling drugs rolled in pieces of newspaper. Sometimes it’s difficult to identify because marijuana is mixed with tobacco leaves.

When youths are drunk, they demand or steal from anybody: money; mobile phones and other valuables. You will see youths running to catch a thief but they don’t catch him as they are feigning. They all cooperate to execute illegal activity.

Long hours are spent in town doing nothing and at night hanging around in front of stores, beer clubs and night clubs looking for opportunities to steal. A lot of strange things happen in town; you can hardly believe them.

The traditional employment of living on the land has been spoiled by the current education system where young people go to school wanting to get employment in town. Instead of cultivating their land for cash crops, they drift into town attracted by the bright lights and, when they find no employment, they resort to illegal activities to make money for survival.

In the absence of spirituality we seemed to have a lot of problems with no known solutions. Our traditional values have declined and young people feel they have no meaning in their lives.

Modern technology, especially TV and the internet, does not support families or youths, programs being filled with obscene and destructive information and extreme violence.

So what is the solution?

There is no quick solution to solve these problems but one way to assist juvenile delinquents is to avoid labelling them as bad people in society. They are troubled human beings and imposing tough penalties is not going to solve their problems. We have to be empathetic and show interest in them as human beings who have the potential to become people.

We need to look at how we can provide options to change their lives.

All people are able to change and we must enable allow them to change their deviant behaviours into authentic selves. Change comes from within. Well directed education and appropriate therapies will allow them to recognise their problems and find their solutions.

We need to reform our schools by including personality development courses, encouraging religious commitment, teaching ethics and morality and modelling good character formation. Our youths today do not have proper guidance to cope with the escalating behavioural dilemma. We also must maintain the cultural norms and values that regulate our behaviour.

Prevention being better than cure, we have to provide holistic precautionary measures for today’s children to be better citizens tomorrow. The behavioural problems will not be eased until we restore human beings. Indeed, this should remain the focal point of developing solutions.

The escalating problems of youth and their deviant behaviour has weakened social cohesion and is a threat to this developing nation.

We will not prosper as a nation if we don't address the youth problem which is now a major impediment to our society achieving progressive development.

The final count in Esa'ala - Davis Steven won easily but then came an unusual court challenge

STAFF REPORTER | PNGi

PORT MORESBY - Blink and you would have missed it. During February 2018 one of the many petitions challenging the 2017 national election results was dismissed.

It was alleged by the unsuccessful candidate, Glenn Tobewa, that Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Davis Steven MP, won the Esa’ala Open seat using bribery.

While Tobewa’s allegations were rejected by the national court, wrapped within this easily forgettable action lies a much more memorable riddle.

In total 16 individuals stood for election in Esa’ala Open. Two of the candidates came from the Maladina family, Moses and Jimmy.

The first question that springs to mind is why two prominent brothers would contest the same electorate, and potentially split their vote, in effect, delivering the win to a candidate outside the family.

But here is where things get even more interesting. It was claimed in the national court that Jimmy Maladina was funding and supporting a rival for the seat, Glenn Tobewa.

The judge’s curiosity over the relationship between Glenn Tobewa and Jimmy Maladina was aroused when an Australian barrister from Queensland, Levente Jurth, fronted the case for Glenn Tobewa.

Jurth is associated with such high profile clients as Eremas Wartoto, who have much deeper pockets than Mr Tobewa.

Judge Higgins observed this raised “the question of the funding of the proceedings given that Mr Tobewa was apparently of limited means”.

Who was Mr Tobewa’s ‘angel’ investor?

All signs point, again, to his apparent political rival in the Esa’ala Open seat, Jimmy Maladina.

Maladina it appeared had paid the airfares of two key witnesses in the case, Polana Lepani and Joe Bentily Bwan.

Under cross-examination Mr Bwan also alleged that “Mr Maladina had funded Mr Toweba’s campaign”.

This led Judge Higgins to conclude that “if it is true [it] leads me to believe that the proceedings are really pursued by him [Jimmy Maladina] through the agency of Mr Tobewa”.

In short, this case presented eyewitness testimony which suggests that Jimmy Maladina paid considerable money to support the campaign of a political rival.

And then Maladina apparently bankrolled litigation against the successful candidate, using the same rival candidate as a proxy to pursue this legal action.

It would seem Jimmy Maladina potentially had a lot to gain from a successful petition.

If Steven was struck out as a candidate, Maladina would have been next in line for the seat. And presumably given his close relationship with the prime minister, a top cabinet position was almost guaranteed.

The question is why would Maladina fund the campaign of a rival? Was this an attempt to split the vote of Davis Steven? And why did Maladina then allegedly hide behind Tobewa in launching a petition?

Why did he not lodge the petition himself? And why would Maladina seek to depose an MP in the prime minister’s party, given that Maladina is said to be O’Neill’s closest adviser? Finally, why would the prominent Maladina brothers split their vote?

If you have the answer to this riddle, PNGi would love to hear from you, email us at admin@pngiportal.org

For more background on Jimmy Maladina, readers can survey a special series put out by PNGi during 2018 on one of the country’s most controversial elites:

The K2.65 million question: Jimmy Maladina and Meck Luo

http://pngicentral.org/reports/the-k2-65-million-question-jimmy-maladina-meck-luo

The Jimmy Maladina scandal you didn’t see!

http://pngicentral.org/reports/the-jimmy-maladina-scandal-you-didnt-see

Charles Abel poses alongside torched vehicle where mother and son were killed

BRYAN KRAMER MP

MADANG - Last week Charles Abel, deputy prime minister and member for Alotau, was publicly criticised for deciding to attend parliament while his electorate was under siege and locked down following a shoot-out between police and a gang of armed criminals.

Three people were reportedly killed following the incident. The provincial legal officer was gunned down while driving home and a young mother and her four year old son were burned to death after their home was set on fire.

In response Abel said he planned to visit the province on Sunday - four days after the incident. In other words when he felt it was safe for him to do so. He later posted pictures of his visit on the Alotau District Facebook page.

It all went wrong. 

First he posted a picture of himself striking a pose at the scene where the young mother and her son were tragically killed. Then he posted a selfie of him standing beside the legal officer's widow.

As expected it triggered a public backlash on social media.

"What's the intent of the pic? Is it appropriate to post [a picture of] a grieving wife at this time? Or a publicity stunt to gain public support," Penua Polon commented.

“Very sad, Charles," said Willie Lolan."

And David Solok remarked, "A selfie to gain media attention just because of your absence right after that attack. How inconsiderate and illogical."

Abel's salacious selfie with grieving widow

Rather than provide an update of the situation on the ground, police operations or arrangements to assist the family of the deceased, Abel had insensitively posted pictures of himself.

It is beyond doubt that the act of staging a photo shoot at the scene and soliciting a selfie with a grieving widow was grossly insensitive and bordering on despicable.

I mean, seriously, who does that, let alone the deputy prime minister of a country?

Abel has ridiculed members of opposition on the floor of parliament for spending too much time on Facebook.

Funnily enough it's become apparent he could certainly use some help from the opposition members on how not to use it.

ALBERT SCHRAM

On Tuesday, after six months, the allegation of “false pretence” concerning Dr Schram’s PhD credentials was thrown out of the Port Moresby magistrate’s court for lack of evidence. Presiding magistrate A Kalandi struck out the case against Dr Schram and discharged him. But Mr Kalandi ordered that Dr Schram forfeit K2,000 bail for not appearing in court and stated he could be arrested if he returned to Papua New Guinea.

The academic had good reasons for not appearing. As he writes on his blog, he had been “in a no-win situation, unable to prove my innocence after being falsely accused, wrongfully dismissed, maliciously prosecuted and unlawfully detained”. You can read Dr Schram’s full account here. What follows is an extract about the life he and his wife Paulina are now leading in his hometown in Italy.

VERONA - Many readers have asked how we are doing after this ordeal. Today, I have moved on.

I feel relieved to be free from those terrible dishonest colleagues, all professed Christians, who unhesitatingly first knowingly falsely accused me, then threw me under the bus, and never again reached out or said or wrote a word to me (with only a few exceptions).

They must be experts in betrayal, since Jesus himself was betrayed by his own disciples.

It really pains me we won't be able to see the many good friends we have made in over six years living among the good people of Papua New Guinea. I can only come back to the country, if all charges are dropped and all costs and damages that my family and I suffered are reimbursed.

Meanwhile, we live modestly at home in Verona with my mother who is 88 years old and almost died of worry last year. In 2015, we invited one of the Unitech students who studied in Europe to visit our place and he liked its peacefulness.

My wife has a job in one of the leading high schools teaching English, and I have a modest job as a professor with an American university on a US army basis in northern Italy where I teach management and history courses.

My credentials and work experience were rigorously checked before I was appointed, and I had to undergo extensive training to learn their systems and teaching methods. In fact, World Education Services has now legalised my doctorate for the United States and can send any university a copy. You don't get such a job if you are a fraud, trust me.

In Italy, I was given this opportunity so soon after returning to teach at this world class institution, and to learn about online and hybrid course delivery.

Today, we enjoy working with our friendly, competent and helpful colleagues, and my wife and I are both contributing to providing a true education of willing learners.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have served the PNG University of Technology well during the two and a half years the university council was not politicised and controlled by the government.

We escaped penniless from Papua New Guinea but we had our lives. It could have been so much better for the PNG University of Technology.

Mother and daughter making pots, Hanuabada, 1920s (Australian Ceramics Association)

TOMÁS DIETZ | Project Gida

CANBERRA - Project Gida [pronounced GHEE-da] is the umbrella name for activities designed to protect and invigorate fading Motuan traditions.

‘Gida’ is the Motu word for 'embers’ - remnants of a fire.  This name was chosen to signal the idea that the embers of Motu culture can be either left to die to cold ashes or fanned back into flame.

As one activity towards retaining these cultural traditions, I am starting an experimental pottery group in Canberra to teach Motu pottery techniques. It will include Canberrans who share a fascination for this ancient tradition.

This group will experiment with the techniques of Motu pottery-making that I acquired in Gida's pilot visit to Boera village.

The point is to gain a practical understanding of Motu pottery construction and will thus make a huge difference in the future when I implement revival programs in the Motu villages.

To start with, we will have an introductory meeting in a couple of weeks to discuss the scope of the group and the schedule of activities. If you're a local, please join us.

In a related project, and after a three year hiatus, it's finally time to continue the pottery documentation we started in 2015.

This means taking the Gida documentary team back to Port Moresby to gather missing information. The trip is still in its planning stages, but we hope to time it to coincide with the Hiri Moale festival in September, a celebration of the great Hiri trade expeditions which died out in the 1950s.

The festival now extends to celebrating traditional Motu culture in general, so it's the perfect time for Gida to be in Port Moresby.

We hope to work again with Mrs Boio Moi of Boera and also to interview Mrs Dimere Bitu of Porebada Village. We discovered Mrs Bitu only at the end of our previous trip just when we ran out of funds and had to depart Port Moresby.

Mrs Bitu is an elderly lady who has a great deal of practical experience and knowledge regarding Motu pottery.

Water pot from Boera village (Potters for Peace)

She has only recently stopped potting because she's not strong enough to gather clay. She now makes and sells shell necklaces at the markets. As far as we know Mrs Bitu, like Mrs Moi, is the last potter in her village.

I will launch another crowd-funding campaign to help us get to Port Moresby. I hope we can rely on people for financial support. Last time (in 2015) we raised around $4,000 which funded just over two weeks of field work. Hopefully this year we will raise enough to finish this project.

If you or any organisation you know of can sponsor us, please let me know here.

PAUL FLANAGAN | East Asia Forum

CANBERRA - The last year should have seen Papua New Guinea’s economic fortunes improve significantly.

Higher oil prices should have contributed to a major decline in budget deficits. The November 2018 APEC meeting provided an opportunity to showcase what PNG has to offer.

But an earthquake, lax budget policy and a build-up of protectionist and anti-market policies meant that the year ended as a mixed bag. The latest International Monetary Fund assessment indicates 0% growth in 2018.

Resources now account for over 80% of PNG’s exports, a major increase from the 50% level of the 1970s and early 1980s.

An earthquake in February 2018 severely disrupted resource production for two months. It also exacerbated local concerns about liquefied natural gas projects in the area and their four-year failure to pay royalties to landowner groups.

While production has since fully recovered and more effort is being made to identify landowners for payments, tensions remain in the Highlands region.

Ongoing concerns about the legitimacy of the 2017 national elections add to this volatile mix, with rioters in the Southern Highlands capital of Mendi burning local courthouses and an Air Niugini plane in a post-election dispute.

PNG is possibly facing another resource boom. Although no final decisions were made, there were positive indications around November’s APEC meeting that two major LNG projects could commence.

A Total-led project along with a third train on the Exxon-led project could double PNG’s current LNG production of eight million tonnes per year. The PNG government is aiming for better fiscal terms from these projects after the disappointing revenue and foreign exchange flows from its last major resource project, PNG LNG.

With the next national election due in mid-2022, a resource construction boom that boosts the local economy from 2021 onwards would serve the O’Neill government well. In December 2018 a non-binding agreement to accelerate granting a lease for the US$2 billion Wafi-Golpu gold and copper mining project was also signed.

If these resource projects proceed, the risk of another ‘resource boom’ will require careful economic management.

The government’s mishandling of the PNG LNG-led resource boom in 2014 left the country with an over-valued exchange rate, the largest budget deficits in its history and foreign exchange shortages that are crippling growth in non-resource parts of the economy.

The country’s economic institutions are in decline. PNG has slipped back to being the only APEC country classified as a ‘fragile situation’ state, according to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, because of worsening economic management.

Official government statistics are fiddled, with a gap of nearly 20% between International Monetary Fund and the PNG government’s GDP estimates.

PNG treasurer Charles Abel, appointed following the re-election of prime minister Peter O’Neill in 2017, is a credible spokesperson for the government. His credibility helped PNG raise a US$500 million sovereign bond in 2018. Key fiscal strategies were being put in place, including better control of the budget deficit, raising revenues and better debt management.

But prime minister O’Neill sometimes overturns the treasurer’s sensible decisions at critical moments. In late 2017, O’Neill overturned planned cuts to politically sensitive electoral funds that accounted for over 5% of the national budget.

In November 2018, contrary to agreements made with the World Bank for budget support and the documents used for building support for the sovereign bond, the treasurer delivered a 2019 budget that spent nearly all the 10% revenue windfall from higher LNG prices.

The sovereign bond and budget support from the ADB and World Bank are providing temporary but only Band-Aid relief to some of the foreign exchange shortages that have become the greatest barrier to business according to local CEOs.

The government is planning to rapidly increase external debt to over 50% of all public debt, a risky choice for a country with an over-valued exchange rate and dependent on volatile resource prices.

APEC provided an opportunity to promote greater economic diversification and integration. While some big promises were made, such as an agreement between the United States, Australia, Japan and New Zealand to spend US$2 billion to improve electricity access in PNG, it is unclear if these commitments involve additional assistance or are just a diversion of funds from other areas.

The PNG budget, released just five days before the APEC meeting, included significant tariff increases to protect the local manufacturing sector — a move that clearly runs counter to APEC’s aim to promote trade in the region.

The PNG government is giving greater attention to the economic sector, with an emphasis on agriculture. But the pattern of this support appears to be a 50% equity injection into large-scale private business entities, tariff support and non-tariff barriers.

PNG did this in the 1980s with its sugar and cement industries, and the results were disappointing. There was little local production and high tariffs of 30% remained in place.

The constitution has prevented any votes of no-confidence against prime minister O’Neill between the July 2017 election and this month. O’Neill is proving to be a canny political master and may well survive any such motions throughout the remainder of 2019 despite his growing unpopularity and poor policy calls on sensitive issues.

At the same time, he is a poor economic master and even with a possible resource boom the standard of living of the vast majority of PNG’s nearly nine million people will continue to decline.

Paul Flanagan is director of PNG Economics and an associate at the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University