PNGBLOGS

by MICHAEL J. PASSINGAN Southern Highlands Governor William Powi wants voters to know he has ambition. Explaining in The National on 23 September why he never founded a party, he said this should not be mistaken for a lack of ability, vision or “leadership ambition”. In the same statement he urged the province’s leaders to unite so its priorities reach whatever government forms after 2027, and asked his critics to stick to facts. Under section 63 of the Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates, the Governor-General must invite the party with the most MPs to form government after an election. That rule does not apply to a vote of no confidence. A governor without a party of his own has no claim on the first route. His path to the top runs through someone else’s party or through the floor of Parliament, and on both routes the currency is a bloc of votes. A united Southern Highlands bench, the governor plus five open members, is six of them. Unity has been his li...

by MICHAEL J. PASSINGAN Higher Education Minister Kinoka Feo wants 500,000 tertiary places. The Unggai-Bena MP, who took the portfolio from Don Polye in July 2024, said this week the country has about 25,000 now, and that Gulf, Central, East Sepik and Oro have signed partnerships to take higher learning into the provinces. He tabled no budget, no timeline and not a single costed institution. In May, breaking ground for a West Sepik college at Poro, Aitape, Feo spoke of 500,000 to 600,000 places. In 2021, DHERST's then acting secretary Francis Hualupmomi reported spaces had grown from 12,000 to 15,000, with a prime ministerial directive to reach 30,000 within five to ten years. Five years on, the minister's own count of 25,000 still falls short of that modest goal, and the goal has been multiplied more than sixteen-fold. Five hundred thousand places, in programmes that mostly run three to four years, means between 125,000 and 167,000 new entrants every year. In 2025, more tha...

by MICHAEL JOSEPH PASSINGAN Australia signed a K27.2 million grant with Telikom this week so the state-owned telco can sort out how it runs itself. A 2025 Australian tender, issued while the grant was in preparation, records that one of Telikom's two billing platforms had already reached end of life. That is where Papua New Guinea's own telecommunications company stands in 2026: needing a foreign grant to fix its back office. Telikom's homepage still carries the line "Connecting the Unconnected in rural Papua New Guinea." It has never come close. Before the market opened to competition, PNG's telephone access was among the lowest in the world, according to the regulator's universal access fund. Telikom was the only operator until 2007. In 2006 its mobile subsidiary had about 100,000 subscribers, most of them in Port Moresby. Digicel did the connecting instead. It arrived in 2007, took mobile penetration from 1.6 per cent in 2006 to about 45 per cent by 20...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA Petroleum Minister Jimmy Maladina wants Papua New Guineans to win more jobs, training and contracts from Papua LNG. So does every landowner in Gulf and Central. The difference is that Maladina holds the pen on the instruments that decide those outcomes, and after Thursday's benefit-sharing signing he offered a wish list instead of a plan. A national content plan for this project has been promised since 2019. That August, after the NEC review of the O'Neill-era gas agreement, then Petroleum Minister Kerenga Kua announced that Total would prepare a detailed plan with the Department of Petroleum and Energy. In October 2022 the minister had still not signed it off. In 2023 TotalEnergies said it would hand one over that September. Seven years on, and weeks from a final investment decision, the minister who approves that plan is still describing what it ought to contain. If an approved plan exists, he should publish it, with hiring and procurement targets and pena...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA Augustine Mano will not be on a ballot paper in 2027, and no electorate can remove him. He has run the Mineral Resources Development Company since March 2008, under Somare, O'Neill and Marape. MRDC is wholly owned by the State, its accounts are tabled by the Prime Minister, and on its own figures it manages K14.5 billion in assets for landowners and provincial governments in the mining and petroleum provinces. He also chairs the Southern Highlands and Gulf provincial health boards. The chairman who signs for both sides Mano has been a director of PNG Air since 2010 and its chairman since 2020. On 31 March 2026 he signed its 2025 accounts. MRDC is the airline's largest shareholder. PNG Air carries K243.6 million in accumulated losses, finished 2025 with liabilities exceeding assets by K12.9 million, and has had its shares suspended on the PNGX since January 2019 for failing to report on time. The same accounts show who is paying for its new fleet. In 2025 t...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA Gulf Province has signed the agreement that fixes how much of Papua LNG's royalties, equity and development levy it will share with Central. It did so before anyone has settled which Gulf clans are entitled to that money. Petroleum Minister Jimmy Maladina called Thursday's Tier 1 signing a major milestone. For Gulf's landowners it is a ceiling. Tier 1 is not a side deal. Under the forum's Operational Rule No. 1, no Tier 2 to Tier 5 allocation could be negotiated until the facilitators declared Tier 1 settled. The split it records becomes the common allocation framework for royalty, equity and development levy in every tier that follows. Every kina the Gulf clans fight over in the coming weeks has already been sized by this signature, and Gulf's landowner representatives sat on the provincial negotiating team that agreed to it. Gulf went into those talks with a hard position. On 15 September, Acting Governor Morris Taudevin told the forum the pr...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA At Bank South Pacific's counter today, K5,000 buys US$936.50 in cash. Sent by telegraphic transfer, it buys US$1,083.50. At the end of 2022, the same K5,000 was worth about US$1,420 at the official rate. That slide was not an accident of the market. It was policy, and the people paying for it were never asked. The kina does not float. The Bank of PNG sets it against the US dollar under what it calls a crawl-like arrangement, and it has walked the currency down since April 2023, the month after the IMF approved PNG's loan programme. The kina closed 2023 at US$0.2683, fell 6.8 per cent through 2024, and now sits near US$0.224, about 21 per cent below where it stood at the end of 2022. At a Lae investment forum in 2024, ANZ's institutional banking director Edwin Shankar put it plainly: "The Kina depreciation has come about as a result of the International Monetary Fund loan." The official defence is that the kina was overvalued. The central bank...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA Bank of Papua New Guinea Governor Elizabeth Genia told the Transparency International PNG anti-money laundering conference at Apec Haus on 30 September that illicit funds move through banks, remitters, foreign exchange dealers, real estate, and the lawyers, accountants and company service providers. In the same speech she assured those sectors that naming them was not blaming them for the grey listing. If the channels are not at fault, and the laws have just been fixed, the obvious question is who is. Wilson Onea, director of BPNG's own Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit, told a panel at the same conference that most of the risks in the 2026 national risk assessment were already there in 2017, and that law enforcement, regulatory and policy capacity had not changed since. "Our core vulnerability is execution, and not legislation," he said. Nine years of the same risks and the same capacity is not a drafting problem. It is a choice about prioritie...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA The Vagrancy Act 2026 is not new. Its definitions, arrest scheme, reverse onus and variation procedure are lifted from Chapter 268, the Vagrancy Act the Supreme Court struck down in SCR No 1 of 1986. The Court found that Act authorised arrest on grounds Section 42 of the Constitution does not permit. The drafters have added a Section 1 asserting compliance with Section 38. Asserting it does not make it so. Section 3 repeats the old defect. Police may arrest anyone they reasonably believe is engaged in conduct "not acceptable in a democratic society", a phrase no citizen can obey with certainty. The person arrested must then prove a string of negatives: that they have not disregarded by-laws, have done nothing unlawful, and are not in breach of any law. Fail on one and they are liable to exclusion. Governor Powes Parkop, who tabled the bill, said it "targets behaviour, not identity". Prime Minister James Marape said it was aimed at people who ca...

Marape's "do your job" is a confession. by PAUL L. KEBAIJA Prime Minister James Marape closed last week's anti-money-laundering conference in Port Moresby by telling the police, the Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit, the asset recovery taskforce, the commercial banks and the Bank of PNG: "Just simply do your job." It was a good line. It was also a confession. A prime minister in his eighth year in office is publicly instructing agencies that answer to his own government to start doing what they were built to do. Agencies do not fail to follow public money because nobody has asked them to. They fail because they lack investigators, forensic accountants, budgets, independence and political cover, and every one of those is set by the government Marape leads. Marape is right that scrutiny must reach past politicians to the lawyers, accountants and Section 32 officers who authorise spending. He left out the people who appoint them. Departmental heads ar...

By Peter Parakisan Sir John Pundari cannot bury his own father in Kompiam-Ambum. The old man lies in Port Moresby because the Member was chased off his ground. That is the measure of the man now moving police commanders around Enga ahead of 2027. Chief Superintendent Steven Harris lasted about ten months as provincial police commander. He was sworn into the Royal PNG Constabulary, Australian, with no clan to feed. Commissioner David Manning sold that as the point: no provincial connection that could compromise him. Governor Sir Peter Ipatas had spent eight years getting that kind of officer into Wabag. In late September the same Commissioner signed the paper that sent Harris to Kimbe and put Acting Superintendent Daniel Yangen in the chair. No reason was published. The Enga Provincial Assembly asked for the transfer to be revoked. Ipatas warned that the timing, with the general election already in sight, put a fragile peace at risk. The handover went ahead anyway. The name on the d...

by Michael J. Passingan Tininga started in May 2005 with two stores bought from Collins and Leahy and a staff of about 80. Twenty-one years later it is one of Mount Hagen's largest companies. It employs more than 1,000 people and has just opened Dobel Central, a new shopping centre built with Steamships Trading Company. The business has deep roots in the place. Managing director Pat Duckworth came from Oldham in England and built his career in Papua New Guinea retail. Director Margaret Duckworth was born in Mount Hagen, the daughter of Highlands pioneer Dan Leahy and Biam Powa of the Jiga Mugmana tribe. Four supermarkets, two hardware stores, a wholesale arm and four distribution outlets now trade under the Tininga name. Behind them sit Highlands Butchery, Highlands Bakery and Hilans Fres, the fresh produce business that connects the company to the region's farmers. Hilans Fres gave Highlands growers a steady buyer and a route to Port Moresby, where most fresh produce is im...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA The plaque at Kerevat National School of Excellence now reads "James Marape Legacy Campus". It sits on a K3.8 million block of 16 classrooms, an auditorium and digital systems, all paid for by the people of Papua New Guinea. Not one kina came from the Prime Minister. The Governing Council has handed a sitting politician naming rights over public property. It did so without asking the alumni, local leaders and community who have carried this school for almost eight decades. Kerevat opened in 1947 as the first high school in the Territory of New Guinea, beginning as a teacher-training institution. It belongs to East New Britain and the Islands. Sir Rabbie Namaliu finished there in 1966 and went on to become the country's fourth Prime Minister. Sir Paulias Matane went from Kerevat to teacher training at Sogeri, served as a teacher and schools inspector, and became Governor-General. Bernard Narokobi matriculated there. These are the people who built Kerev...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA Papua New Guinea has now spent seven and a half months on the Financial Action Task Force grey list, and at the only FATF plenary since, the Marape Government chose to say nothing. When the FATF updated its list on 19 June, it recorded that PNG had deferred reporting, so the statement published against our name is still February's. Deferral is allowed for countries not facing an immediate deadline. It is also telling. Algeria and Namibia, both listed in 2024, used the same meeting to walk off the list. The Asian Development Bank says PNG's economic stability has improved, but more work is needed before resource wealth becomes sustained growth. Its new five-year programme puts stronger public financial management and better oversight of the resource sector near the top. These are not development extras. They are the basic functions of a sovereign state, and an international lender is now paying to build them seven years into this Prime Minister's tenure....

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA William Powi has run Southern Highlands for the better part of twenty years. In neither of the last two elections did he win a count that was allowed to finish. He came in through the emergency door. The National Executive Council made him acting provincial administrator from 17 May 2006. When the state of emergency was declared that August, he was assistant controller as well as administrator. That September a Gazette notice revoked his appointment. The next Gazette carried a public notice calling the revocation defective and void, and insisting Powi was still administrator. In 2011 he was still acting in the post after his contract had expired. In 2012 he moved from the administration into the vacant regional seat, and he has held it ever since. On the 2018 subnational figures, Southern Highlands' HDI of 0.479 ranked 21st of 22 provinces. That is the scorecard. Everything else is press release. It is a rumor later confirmed by David Wakias (former Election M...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA When Arthur Somare closed Thursday's session of the Papua LNG Development Forum, he joked that everyone was waiting "with bated breath" to hear whether talks would start on Monday. At that point Gulf Province wanted 95 per cent of the shared benefits and Central wanted 45. The two provinces were 40 points apart, weeks from an investment deadline, and the chair's main announcement was the next day's start time. The joke would land better if Somare were a neutral figure. Petroleum Minister Jimmy Maladina has presented the facilitation panel as independent. "They are not from government," he said, adding that they were appointed because of their knowledge and experience. In the same breath he confirmed that the panel is chaired by former Petroleum Minister Arthur Somare, who played a leading role during the PNG LNG development process. That experience is exactly the problem. As a minister in his father's government, Arthur Somare h...

Grey-Listed, Gun-Ridden, and Still Feeding time, Handing Out Titles. by PAUL L. KEBAIJA Papua New Guinea turned 51 on 16 September. The next morning, two more vice-ministers were sworn in: Porgera-Paiela MP Gidron Maso Karipe for Petroleum and Usino-Bundi MP Vincent Kumura to assist the Prime Minister. James Marape called it mentoring. He also raised, before anyone else could, the question of why it was happening only months before an election. Here is the answer Waigani will not give. With the 2027 poll less than a year away, a vice-ministry is one more way to keep an MP fed, loyal and inside the government camp. Titles and allowances for the backbench as the writs approach are the oldest tool in PNG coalition management. The table is well laid. On the latest published Salaries and Remuneration Commission schedule, a vice-minister's base salary is K126,272, against K105,343 for a backbencher. Add the bigger housing, vehicle, driver and entertainment allowances and the title is...

by M. J. PASSINGAN In the early hours of 13 September, more than 30 men armed with high-powered rifles drove into Panguna and attacked staff of Lloyds Metals and Energy Limited. Machinery was torched and a man was killed. President Ishmael Toroama responded with defiance, saying the attack would only strengthen his government's resolve to enforce its mandate to reopen the mine. His Veterans Minister, Lynus Dake Junior, went further, insisting it was not a protest or land grievance but a crime driven by greed and criminal elements. That framing is convenient, and it is incomplete. Samson Kaissy, who chairs the Panguna Landowners Interim Council and supports Toroama, said the attackers were unauthorised gold panners angry at being displaced by the mine's reopening. People losing their livelihood to a mine project is a land grievance. It is the same kind of grievance that closed Panguna in the first place, shut in 1989 amid protests over environmental damage and how the revenue ...

by PAUL L. KEBAIJA On 7 September, TotalEnergies released a statement from Paris announcing "decisive steps" towards a final investment decision on Papua LNG. The body of the release tells a different story. The operator is stepping back, the State is stepping forward, and the terms that matter to Papua New Guineans are not published. Lets Start with what has actually been decided. Nothing in the release commits anyone to construction. The EPC contract award recommendations are ready to be approved by the co-venturers, which means they have not been approved. The offtake deal is a Heads of Agreement, a statement of intent rather than a sales contract. Papua LNG has been "approaching FID" for most of the Marape government's life. Reuters reports pressure to reach a final investment decision by the end of the year on the long-delayed project. That deadline falls in the run-up to the 2027 National Elections. Second, TotalEnergies is reducing its exposure while k...

By PAUL L. KEBAIJA Prime Minister James Marape wants the country to believe the hard part of Papua LNG is done. He said the precedent, structure, template and ratio were already in place from the PNG LNG experience, though he conceded Papua LNG had its own circumstances. He meant it as reassurance. It reads as a warning. The PNG LNG template is years of royalties held back while clan vetting fights went through the courts. If that is the model, Papua LNG is heading for the same outcome. Start with the timetable. Marape has set the final investment decision for 15 December and wants landowner and provincial agreements substantially progressed before November. That leaves about six weeks. His advice to anyone who disagrees is to log the dispute on a separate list and sign whatever has been agreed. A benefit-sharing agreement with an annex of unresolved disputes is not a settlement. It is a deferred grievance with a signature on it. Then there is the question of who counts. On the same...