Other priorities outweigh K10m to startup
02 November 2020
DEBORAH RUTH TELEK
| My Land, My Country
PORT MORESBY - We cannot even get National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority accredited laboratories up and running around Papua New Guinea for testing.
These labs are used for testing water supply and processed food samples for public safety.
But now it seems we want to leapfrog over all the other things this country needs and do drug research. Wow!
The National Institute of Standards and Industrial Technology is failing and cannot handle local calibration of weights, thermometers and other standard measurement equipment, a job which is outsourced to the private sector.
It seems we have forgotten about the necessity of this enabling environment and are paying a startup entity K10.2 million for drug research. Shocking!
Let’s say goodbye to our tax money.
I mean, the government has just restructured an existing loan with Bank South Pacific and given us some breathing space so the K10.2 million is possibly just loose change that fell out of the prime minister’s pocket while he was listening to Niugini BioMed’s spiel.
I wonder if the EMTV news item showing Niugini BioMed directors justifying themselves is how they presented to our prime minister.
Did they ramble like that in front of the prime minister? Why would he buy the Covoid drug proposal hook line and sinker with that poor presentation?
Right thinking Papua New Guineans would say no to the BioMed proposal in its current form and at this time.
We have other pressing priorities.
Prime minister James Marape should pour money into pharmaceutical research and see which team develops vaccines for the treatment of Covid-19.
And not only Covid-19 but finding cures for other diseases as well.
Even herbal doctors are claiming to find cure for AIDS and Covid-19. We have traditional plants of pharmaceutical value but not much research has been done to isolate some of the chemicals for medical use.
Posted by: Philip Kai Morre | 02 November 2020 at 05:30 PM
Deborah's word "wow" is on par with Gary Juffa's use of the word "amazing". Both were commenting (on different events) at a possible shocking ripoff.
"NBL chairman Dr Bomai Kerenga....said it was to buy equipment." Well and good. None ought argue. Yet may more be said....
In this new awareness of the value of 'social distancing', comes longer the queues of those seeking and indeed needing attention.
That drearily brings loss of time in waiting in line. Also not just illness, but deaths.
Heavens above, the wait was almost unbearable in times past (those ordinary days bipor Covid-19). Now the wait is compounded by mere pathogens, individually so small that most folk find difficult to evade in preventative chores.
Then there is PPE (personal protective equipment). Health workers at the frontline were and are in serious danger, and needing PPE.
With admirable sense of duty to care, they have been attending to tasks of caring, treating and alleviating ill.
Their job will diminish vastly if a cure comes for Covid-19. So maybe none will argue against such effort of research.
The 'hook' on the line presented to PM Marape appears as 'cure'. The other knotted bits are 'drug' and 'vaccine'. Each has a chance of appeal to a politician, more so if unversed in that tok.
Did that tok comprise screened optics of matrix (or matrices) and image (or imaginations)?
Shades of screen-based Sesame Street and Play School?
So, go well Dr Kerenga. Effort is a requirement in research.
By the way, has PM Marape visited PNG's National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority?
Posted by: Lindsay F Bond | 02 November 2020 at 11:10 AM