PNG forest minister puts foreign logging companies above the law
17 November 2015
PNG EXPOSED BLOG
PAPUA New Guinean laws do not apply to foreign owned logging companies according to the country’s Forest Minister Douglas Tomuriesa
Mr Tomuriesa says that, although logging companies may have illegally acquired logging rights through unlawfully issued leases and fraudulent forest clearance authorities, the government is not going to take action against them.
According to the minister, the logging companies can continue to operate illegally without fear of sanction.
Speaking on ABC news earlier this month, Mr Tomuriesa said that, as the logging companies have invested in their operations, the government won’t take action against them as that would mean the money had been wasted.
Bank robbers take note – invest in a helicopter or a get-away van to flee the scene and all your crimes will be forgiven!
For the minister, that the logging companies having made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit from their illegal logging operations makes no difference.
Nor does the fact they have bulldozed their way through hundreds of hectares of forest causing enormous destruction and environmental harm.
It is enough that the logging companies have brought in a few chainsaws and bulldozers which make them immune from the law. Or is it perhaps a few bribes to the politicians that are really behind the minister’s words?
The 2013 Special Agricultural Business Lease (SABL) commission of inquiry found the SABL leases had been unlawfully issued and public statements from both the prime minister and the chief secretary described them as a scam and the companies as corrupt.
Clearly that corruption extends right to the very highest levels of the PNG government – what other reason could there be for its failure to take action?
Mr Tomuriesa has not indicated whether the government’s indulgent attitude towards illegal activity will be extended to less serious crimes like shoplifting and pick-pocketing – after all isn’t everyone meant to be equal before the law?
Not in Papua New Guinea it seems!
Papua New Guinea seems to be an exceptionally depressing place at the moment. It seems to have become the Zimbabwe of the South Pacific.
While we in Australia who know the country have always been able to make excuses for what is happening up there, incompatible cultural, social and political systems and so on, it's starting to wear a bit thin.
We've even been happy with the old anti-colonial rhetoric and taken the blame for not setting the place up with adequate foundations for growth and development.
Even if that were true, which it isn't, it's been forty odd years since independence. Even if we had left the place in a shambles Papua New Guinean leaders, given the country's bountiful resources, have had ample time to fix it and turn the place around.
Instead, they have driven the place deeper and deeper into a quagmire, a quagmire, in the final analysis, that is all of their own making.
And yet they continue blaming everyone else for their problems, and it's not just the leaders and politicians, ordinary Papua New Guineans do the same thing.
Talk and bluster and copious amounts of hot air exist in abundance in Papua New Guinea.
If you could bottle and sell laziness, greed and stupidity Papua New Guinea would be at the head of the pack, a world leader. As it is the place is at the bottom of every measureable indicator of social advancement, be it in the treatment of women and children to care of the elderly and frail.
Papua New Guinea has got huge problems with drugs and alcohol yet there isn't one public rehabilitation facility in the whole country. Can you believe that? It's incredible!
The population is growing at unsustainable levels and it is predicted to one day overtake Australia yet there has been little if any effort to build the infrastructure required to handle it.
Tuberculosis and cholera are rife, HIV/AIDS is out of control and untreatable strains of malaria are creeping higher and higher into the mountains.
Violence and crime are out of control. Guns are flooding in from Indonesia.
The list is endless.
And now a witless politician has come out and refused to curtail illegal Asian loggers because they have invested so much money in their pillage and destroying the environment.
I've got nothing but praise for people like Governor Juffa who are trying to create awareness of what's happening in West Papua but with the greatest respect, isn't it better to first fix up the mess in your own country?
Papua New Guinea has been a big part of many Australian lives but its all wearing very thin indeed and the inclination for us to simply turn our backs on it all as a lost cause and ignore it is becoming very compelling.
Papua New Guinea. Beautiful country. It's people? Well a few I know personally are great but as for the rest ......?
And besides, we have enough problems in our own country to be going on with anyway.
Posted by: Phil Fitzpatrick | 18 November 2015 at 04:29 PM
MP's undergo a special initiation ceremony when they enter Haus Tambaran - their foresight is removed, much like a circumcision - so that henceforth they are able to circumvent the law, citizen rights, parliamentary procedure, common sense and etc.
Posted by: Michael Dom | 18 November 2015 at 03:12 PM
'Yes Minister' but on whose land are the logging companies illegally operating on? You sound very weak, lack foresight and incapable of speaking on behalf of the people.
Send them up here to Enga and other parts of the Highlands. There are virgin forests ready to be harvested here.
Posted by: Daniel Ipan Kumbon | 18 November 2015 at 12:15 PM
This is pathetic beyond words.
Posted by: Johnny Blades | 17 November 2015 at 07:43 PM