Pokpok Island near Kieta. Tourism at community level has great potential for small business and, in the long term, to promote Bougainville as a peaceful and beautiful Pacific destination

SIMON PENTANU*

KIETA - We can talk about and hold up and dangle tourism as a potential driver and earner of Bougainville’s internal revenue - talking is easy.

We are creatures of habit and instinct and we keep talking and talking if it sounds good without realising things are much more involved and will take a lot more focused human effort than we think.

CHRIS DUCKETT
| ZDNet | Edited extracts

SYDNEY - Australia is funding the potential purchase of a Pacific telco for only one reason, to ensure China Mobile doesn't get to it first.

It now appears Australia wants a crack at showing the world how to keep companies out of Chinese ownership.

Influential Bougainville politician, Theonila Matbob - Prominent in advocating that Rio Tinto should accept responsibility for cleaning up Panguna's devastating legacy

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – After several months of discussions Rio Tinto and 156 Bougainville community members, represented by the Human Rights Law Centre, last week reached an agreement to assess legacy impacts of the former Panguna copper and gold mine on Bougainville.

The mine was operated by Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL), then majority owned by Rio Tinto, from 1972 until 1989 when operations were suspended following guerrilla against the mine and a subsequent civil war.

Tailings waste flowing into Konawiru-Jaba River delta on the Bougainville west coast

STEFAN ARMBRUSTER
| SBS News

BRISBANE - Multinational mining giant Rio Tinto has agreed to fund an independent assessment of the human rights and environmental impacts of its former Panguna copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea’s autonomous region of Bougainville.

Rio Tinto abandoned the mine in 1989 during a brutal civil conflict on Bougainville and now no longer holds a stake after controversially divesting its shareholding to the PNG and Bougainville governments in 2016, rejecting corporate responsibility for environmental damage.

Menya River (Brian Chapaitis)

ACT NOW!

PORT MORESBY - This article breaks down some of the myths used to justify the privatisation of customary land.

It makes clear that efforts to privatise land are not about development but about profits for corporations, financial institutions and already wealthy people.

Cartoonist Mark David depicts treasurer Frydenberg and prime minister Morrison's flawed efforts in managing the pandemic and the economy

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – Keith Jackson has rightly written (‘Lethargic Australia drops ball on Covid’) that the Morrison government has failed dismally to do its job in relation to both quarantine and vaccination relating to Australia’s Covid pandemic.

The direct result of this failure is that the State premiers have had to do all the heavy lifting to contain the virus.

Loi Bakani - "The Bank of PNG disassociates itself from the statement made by FASU”

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) has strongly supported PNG’s financial regulator after Central Bank governor dissociated his bank from action it had taken to investigate possible money laundering.

TIPNG chair Peter Aitsi called on the government and the private sector to respect the independence of the Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit (FASU).

Then Treasurer Don Polye refused to approve the deal and was sacked by prime minister Peter O’Neill. Polye is one of the few people to emerge with honour from the scandal

ANGUS GRIGG
| Australian Financial Review | Extracts

SYDNEY - For the past four months, a royal commission into an eight-year-old deal most Australians have never heard of, in a country that rarely rates a mention, has been quietly chipping away.

Forced online by Covid-19, the inquiry into a $1.3 billion (K3.4 billion) loan extended by the Sydney office of UBS to the government of Papua New Guinea has heard from prime ministers, chief executives, a cabinet minister and top bureaucrats.

Bank South Pacific in Port Moresby

SARAH KENDELL
| Investor Daily

SYDNEY - A Papua New Guinea-based banking group listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has caught the ire of the regulator for alleged serious breaches of Australia’s anti-money laundering rules.

BSP Financial Group (BFL), which listed on the ASX earlier this year, is the largest bank in PNG with branches in six South Pacific nations.

Sir Julius Chan, EITI secretariat head Lucas Alkan and New Ireland provincial administrator Lamiller Pawut

SONIA BECKS
| PNG Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

KAVIENG - New Ireland governor Sir Julius Chan says a proposed law to promote transparency and accountability in mining and petroleum will keep everyone honest in the long run.

Chan made this remark when he opened the Extractive Industries Transparency Commission Bill consultation for the New Guinea Island Region.

Malcolm Kela Smith (PNGi). "Mal's response was furious and littered with profanities. Needless to say, my relationship with him ended acrimoniously"

WILL MUSKENS
| Ex Kiap Website | Edited

BARDON, QLD - The people who live along the Sepik River, who depend upon it for their livelihoods, are facing the fight of a lifetime.

The Chinese-owned Guangdong Rising through its subsidiary, PanAust, is seeking approval from the Papua New Guinea government to establish the Frieda River copper and gold mine.

The unfinished K200 million Boroko casino. Arguments continue on a project that went bust in 2011 (TIPNG)

KEITH JACKSON

PORT MORESBY - National Gaming Control Board (NGCB) chairman Clemence Kanau says the regulator never had aspirations to run Port Moresby’s casino.

Kanau also dismissed claims by failed Boroko Casino developer, South Korean company CMSS PNG, that it had met all the requirements to establish the casino.

Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga speaking during the online 9th Pacific Alliance Leaders Meeting (PALM)

NEWS DESK
| Sunday Bulletin

PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinea’s prime minister James Marape wants Japan, Australia and New Zealand to establish an economic bubble with Pacific Island countries as part of the fight against Covid-19.

Marape made his appeal at Friday's 9th Pacific Alliance Leaders Meeting, which was held virtually.

An unmaintained road in Lae PNG's second largest city

GRAHAM KING

YUNGABURRA - The Collins English dictionary defines the word ‘maintain’ as the ‘to keep in proper or good condition’.

And, of course, it is a standard procedure for a successful business to always allocate funds in its budget for repair and maintenance.

Potholes must be filled before they become enormous craters; engine oil must be changed according to the manufacturer’s schedule; tyres must be replaced when worn out. And so a very long list goes on.

The beautiful west coast of New Ireland's Namatanai district where the Kamlapar clan is located

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Landowners on the west coast of New Ireland's Namatanai district claim a US-based company is illegally selling carbon credits on the international market that have been obtained by fraud.

The Kamlapar Incorporated Land Group alleges that New Ireland Hardwood Timber (NIHT), and its PNG-registered subsidiary NI Holdings, entered their customary land without clan consent having been engaged by clan members who had no authority to deal with the company.

I've been everywhere man. James Rice on one of his many trips through PNG

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

LAE -The motorbike-riding Paradise Foods CEO, James Rich, has ridden his machine from Lae to Gembogl, travelled a portion of the mighty Sepik River, set foot on the banks of Lake Sirunki and admired the salt ponds in Enga.

His approach to living and working in Papua New Guinea has been refreshing for many of us who have grown weary of the negative attention of the media.

Finance minister Don Polye was sacked because he refused to sign documents to facilitate the enormous loan agreement

KEITH JACKSON

PORT MORESBY – Senior politicians and others who engineered a K3 billion loan to the Papua New Guinea government in 2014 must be held accountable, says former Treasurer Don Polye

In that year the O'Neill government decided to borrow the money, which represented 75% of the PNG budget, from the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS).

Governor Gary Juffa - "I am beginning to truly understand my grandfather’s deep joy for working the land"

GOVERNOR GARY JUFFA
| Asia-Pacific Anticorruption & Human Rights Advocate Group

KOKODA - Finally my cocoa trees are growing and bearing fruit. Kokoda Block 168 is slowly coming back to life.

As a child I used to wander this small portion of land so treasured by Victor Juffa, my grandfather and adoptive father.

Crew of the Chinese training ship Qi Jiguang on a visit Dili (Li Mingyu, China Military Online)

JIM MOORE

WARRADALE, SA - In September 1999, I went to East Timor (Timor-Leste) to work with an aid agency in the aftermath of the 25-year civil war and the savage lead-up to the independence referendum.

It is almost impossible to imagine the devastation that was visited on this former province of Indonesia that became an independent but desperately poor nation.

Privatising PNG Power will open up consumers to exploitation by price gouging. The better option may be to split PNG Power Ltd into several parts

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - While National Capital District governor Powes Parkop may be right in his analysis of the problem of Port Moresby's unreliable electricity supply, the solution he is proposing is not necessarily the best.

If by privatisation Parkop means selling the power assets lock, stock and barrel to a private company, then I believe he is advocating the wrong solution.

Port Moresby blackout (PNG Loop)

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

WAIGANI - For three consecutive weeks, electricity in Papua New Guinea’s capital has blacked out in the evenings.

But this is not unusual for Port Moresby, a city dubbed ‘one of the least livable cities in the world’ by The Economist intelligence unit’s Global Liveability Index in the same week.

ARTHUR WILLIAMS

CARDIFF, UK – I would suggest that the disgraceful eviction of 2,000 people from the ATS settlement is merely the symptom of a Papua New Guinea 'disease'.

Namely, that over the last 100 years, hundreds of businesses have fastened onto the money-making teat that a capital city, in this case Port Moresby, always engenders.

Plunder (Ben Sanders)

PACIFIC PROJECT TEAM
| The Guardian | Edited extracts

Link here to view the entire article together
with interactive maps and data sets

SYDNEY - Millions of tonnes of minerals, fish and timber are extracted from Pacific island nations each year, generating massive profits for foreign multinationals.

The Coral Sea Resort Casino in Honiara

PHILIP KAI MORRE
| Social Worker & Addiction Counsellor

PORT MORESBY - Gambling is a disease of addiction that can have every family member suffering from its effects.

Casinos are highly organised gambling. Gambling for corporate profit.

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

It is an absolutely disgusting move by the National Gaming and Control Board - Papua New Guinea’s gaming regulator - to sign off papers giving the OK for a new casino to be built in Port Moresby. It is even more disgusting that the Board sees fit to announce itself as a partner in the gambling business

LAE - Here’s are some questions for the National Gaming and Control Board.

How will the Board – the regulator – regulate itself as a partner and the investor in the event that there are offences committed against the law?

ANALOGY BY THE AVISAK N'GEGOS

The chiefs of 49 villages along the Avisak [Sepik River] together with Save the Sepik have organised 408 clans and 51 n’gegos [haus tambaran] into a united nation working to reject the proposed PanAust Frieda River mine

SEPIK RIVER - The Frieda River gold and copper mine can be likened to a vehicle.

When it first started, and was in the exploration stage, we the people of Avisak would see helicopters buzzing and whooshing across the sky almost every day, back and forth across the project site.

Capitalism isn't working (Photo - Jonny White)

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Bernard Corden is right (‘Wages of fear – Contracting out the danger’). Neo-liberal capitalism has very adept at outsourcing hard, dirty or dangerous work to the developing world.

Outsourced to places where the political elites are largely unconcerned about the welfare of their workforce, preferring to focus on the acquisition of wealth for themselves.

The baret allows people from Korogu village on the Sepik to travel inland to trade their fish for buai, saksak and other crops

DUNCAN GABI
| Auna Melo

KEMBIAM, SEPIK RIVER - The Sepik River has hundreds of lakes (raunwara), maybe more than hundreds, that are 300-500 meters from the main river.

These lakes are connected to the river by narrow waterways that allow people to access the lakes from the river.

BERNARD CORDEN
| Edited extracts

‘No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky’ - Bob Dylan

BRISBANE - Wages of Fear is a critically acclaimed classic suspense movie starring Yves Montand and based on a French novel, Le Salaire de la Peur, by George Arnaud, written almost seven decades ago.

The narrative remains eerily familiar across Australia and Papua New Guinea, especially if you have ever driven through the Kassam or Daulo passes on the Okuk Highway amidst a convoy of dilapidated trucks.

JUSTIN SMIRK
| Business Advantage PNG

PORT MORESBY - In the ten years of data collected by the PNG 100 CEO Survey, some trends are emerging.

We can see where improvements have been made to business conditions in Papua New Guinea, where there has been slippage, and where there is more work to be done.

Logging ship at Vanimo, West Sepik

EDDIE TANAGO
| ACT NOW!

PORT MOREBY - The Forest Authority must stop aiding and abetting logging companies identified by the Internal Revenue Commission as defrauding the State and landowners by evading taxes.

Fraudulent practices around log exports from PNG over the past 20 years could have the cost the country as much as K21 billion.

BERNARD CORDEN

‘Well I dreamed I saw the knights in armour coming sayin’ something about a Queen / Look at mother nature on the run in the 1970s’ - Neil Young, from After the Gold Rush

BRISBANE - Rio Tinto’s recent destruction of the Juukan Gorge indigenous rock shelters in the Pilbara region of Western Australia attracted extensive media attention and resulted in a federal senate inquiry.

It also led to several resignations of senior executives, humiliated but richly rewarded with golden handshakes.

The bulldozers move in on ATS. Marape says he wants them out - but is he being truthful?

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – I thought this was going to be a good news story, but now I'm  not too sure.

Late last week, Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape seemed to move with lightning speed  to stop a developer evicting residents and destroying homes at Port Moresby’s ATS settlement.

However, just as I was putting the story to bed last night, I got some disconcerting news. But first some background.

Isaac Salip and Komolong ensure the white copra undergoes correct sun drying

DAVID KASEI WAPAR
| Story & Pictures

MADANG - Mirap, a neglected community in the Sumkar District, is the first to host white copra production in Madang Province, thanks to the initiative of a local farmer.

Copra production along this stretch of the Madang–Bogia Highway has seen better days.

Michelle Rooney - "Women are the target of police and municipal authorities who often resort to violence" 

MICHELLE NAYAHAMUI ROONEY
| Centre for International Private Enterprise

An abridged extract from ‘Papua New Guinea: Centering the ‘People’s Economy’ in Covid-19 Recovery’. You can link here to the full paper

WASHINGTON DC – Papua New Guinean women are the backbone of the PNG ‘people’s economy’, but they face cultural and social challenges that undermine their resilience and ability to sustain their engage in the economy.

They are the primary caregivers for the country’s burgeoning young population.

PNG consumer price index 2018-21

JOHN KURI

PORT MORESBY - Ten years ago, a bag of 10kg rice cost something like K20. Today, stores sell a 10kg rice bag for between K31 and K35.

Ten years ago a live chicken cost K20. Today it’s K40. By the look of things, the price of live chickens will go all the way to K50 - my prediction for 2023. And we probably wouldn’t notice it.

NEWS DESK
| PNGi Forests

PORT MORESBY - For more than 25 years, deep in the remote and inaccessible tropical forests of Papua New Guinea, a huge industrial complex has been operating.

Foreign owned companies have been bulldozing tracks, felling huge trees, cutting logs and dragging them to the coast to be loaded onto ships and sent overseas.

KEITH JACKSON

PORT MORESBY – A discussion paper just released by the Papua New Guinea National Research Institute proposes that PNG create more jobs by discouraging imports of consumables, or goods for immediate consumption, and expanding exports.

Consumables are goods used by individuals and businesses that need to be replaced regularly because they are used up or wear out.

The PNG Forest Authority has failed in its mandate to ensure the sustainable management of PNG’s forests and is pushing back against government reforms 

EDDIE TANAGO
| Act Now!

PORT MORESBY – The increase in duty on round log exports introduced in Papua New Guinea’s 2020 budget is already having a positive effect.

Analysis by community advocacy group Act Now! shows that the higher export duty has increased government revenue and driven down log exports in line with government policy.

Clothes hanging over a muddy beach at Daru island, just four kilometers from the Australian border

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - I think Michael Kabuni's analysis is basically correct. Australia's policy in relation to Papua New Guinea has indeed been deficient and reactive in some respects.

While I agree that the proposed Daru fisheries deal should bring economic benefits to PNG and the Western Province, I wonder how significant the benefits will be in the long term.

JOHN GREENSHIELDS

ADELAIDE – Why are Australian taxpayers funding Papua New Guinea’s 111 parliamentarians with $2.9M (K8 million) each for District Services Improvement Fund, and other discretionary funds, with little accountability and proper procurement process?

When Charles Abel was Treasurer from 2017-19, he tried to wind back these funds in the budget, but was over-ruled by prime minister Peter O’Neill.

Daru, capital of impoverished Western Province, is the planned site of a major Chinese fishery. It will generate many jobs. But Australia opposes the idea

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Asia & the Pacific Policy Society

WAIGANI - Last November, Chinese company Fujian Zhonghong Fishery Limited signed a memorandum of understanding with the Papua New Guinea government to set up a K700 million multi-functional fisheries industrial park in Daru, Western Province.

Unfortunately, debate in Australia surrounding this proposal has not extended beyond Australia’s security concerns as to what this project means for Western Province people.

David 'Kitch' Kitchnoge - news of his appointment to a top PNG financial post brought joy to social media

NEWS DESK
| Nambawan Super

PORT MORESBY - Chairman of Nambawan Super, Reg Monagi, has announced that David Kitchnoge, a sometime contributor to PNG Attitude, has been appointed Chief Investment Officer, the fund’s top investment job.

‘Kitch’ Kitchnoge is a well-respected and experienced investment professional with nearly20 years’ experience in PNG’s financial sector.

MAHOLOPA LAVEIL
| DevPolicy Blog | Edited

PORT MORESBY - Papua New Guinea plans to conduct its fifth national census in July this year.

The last census in 2011 was considered a failure.

This means that, if this census goes ahead, the 2021 census will be the country’s first chance in more than 20 years to gather complete socio-demographic information from across the country.

Jerry Kapka and a pensive Scott Waide at the Kongo coffee factory near Chuave

SCOTT WAIDE
|  My Land,My Country

LAE - Two years  ago, we were passing through from Western Highlands and stopped by at Jerry Kapka’s coffee factory along the Chuave section of the highway.

Mr Kapka is the owner of Kongo Coffee, one of the biggest brands in Papua New Guinea.

Fly River at Kiunga (OTML)

STEPHEN CHARTERIS

BANGKOK – The recent visit by an Australian diplomatic team to meet the Western Province governor in Daru resulted in another flare-up in the a chronic, complex and damaging sore that has long been festering away four kilometers from Australia’s northern border.

It will take cool heads with real vision and a genuine sense of shared purpose to tackle this.

Governor Taboi Awi Yoto meets in Daru with Australian High Commission officials. "Australians working behind my back," he says

TABOI AWI YOTO
| Governor, Western Province | Edited

DARU - As expected, lately there has been an increased Australian interest in Western Province after the signing of the memorandum of understanding for a Chinese-led fisheries park on Daru Island.

Last week a team of Australians [from the High Commission] came to Daru to meet with the provincial government to discuss the fisheries park.

John Conroy - writes on the neglected part of PNG's economy without which the country would probably not function

JOHN D CONROY

CANBERRA - In my recently-published book, The Informal Economy in Development, I have tried to explain what ‘informal economy’ means, and why it matters for Papua New Guinea.

Economic informality is often misunderstood and disrespected. My book argues that many kinds of informal economic activity are socially-useful.

They should not be banned and informal workers should not be treated unfairly.

Under the watchful eye of Huawei, PNG DataCo lays the Kumul submarine cable off Vanimo

BERNARD YEGIORA
| The Yegiora Files | Edited

MADANG - Technology is increasingly becoming an important part of human life and most of what we do today is influenced by our use of technology.

As a developing country, Papua New Guinea is seeing technological changes unfold with the help of China.

Sir Mekere Morauta - brought Papua New Guinea back from the brink of economic disaster

MATTHEW MORRIS
| DevPolicy Blog

CANBERRA - Following independence, the Papua New Guinea economy fared relatively well. From 1980 to 1994 it grew at an average of 4% a year.

It was a bumpy ride though, with peaks and troughs in growth, notably the closure of the Panguna mine in 1989 and the start of the Kutubu oil project in 1992.