Teachers through out the country are yet to be paid their 3% pay increase because the PNG Teachers Association is yet to meet with the Department of Personnel Management (DPM) on this matter. This was made know in parliament this morning by the Education Minister Jimmy Uguro, during question time. He said the DPM is still waiting for the PNGTA to meet with the department to do the necessary paperwork to make sure that 3% is paid this year. The minister, when responding to questions from the member for Moresby North East John Kaupa on the matter, explained also that the 3% increase is for all public servants and teachers as public servants are entitled to this increase and should access it quickly. “Teachers are part of the public servants in the country that we have, we have about 130, 000 public servants clocked on the payroll and out of that total, 65, 000 of them are teachers. “My department of personnel management is waiting for now is for the PNGTA to get themselves organized so that they will sort out that matter with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), and from there the process comes through us and then treasury and finance will be able to release the funds to pay the 3 per cent to them.” This is now something that the PNGTA and the TSC must resolve now by meeting up with the Department of Personnel Management.

Great news for Nasfund Contributors Savings and Loans Society (NCSL) members, it has been confirmed that the NCSL Members Services will be back online today. According to NCSL, Members Online Portal service should be back online at 5pm this afternoon; however, the Loan Application service will be back online on Monday 20th March. For the Employer Online Portal, which includes Loan Endorsement, Processing Member Contributions and Processing New Membership. For the USSD service, the SMS Banking services will come online on Tuesday 21st March, while the Poro Card service is temporary unavailable but should resume in mid- April. Members without access to the Members Online Portal are advised that the branches will still be accepting manual withdrawal applications. For members with access to emails, they are encouraged to email their withdrawal applications to ceo@ncsl.com.pg. Members are also encouraged to apply for Member Online Portal access by email ebanking@ncsl.com.pg.

Sir Bob Dadae was officially sworn in as the 11th Governor General of Papua New Guinea (PNG) this morning in Port Moresby, marking his second term in office as the representative of King Charles in the country. The ceremony took place at the National Parliament House Chamber at Waigani in front of members of parliament and dignitaries. He first took the Oath of Allegiance and the Declaration of Office and following that, he was officially sworn in by the Chief Justice of Papua New Guinea Sir Gibs Salika on the floor of parliament. Sir Dadae was re-elected as the country’s governor general on the 19th of January 2023 by secret ballot on the floor of parliament. Initially, three candidates stood for the vice regal job, Sir Dadae, female diplomat Winnie Kiap and Steven Pokawin. Pokawin later fell out of the race during the eliminations after receiving only three votes to Sir Dadae 69 and Winnie Kiap 31. In the final vote, the Speaker of Parliament Job Pomat then read the final vote where he announced that Sir Dadae received 69 votes to Kiap’s 31 votes.

The country’s national power generation and transmission company- PNG Power Limited, is not going to be sold because it’s got some major financial issues that it is currently dealing with. The Minister for State Owned Enterprises William Duma in parliament today, admitted that the power company owes various creditors substantial amounts of money and already two of those creditors have taken the power company to court. However, this matter is being sorted out and the minister stressed again that PNG Power will not be sold off for cheap as a last-minute measure to get out of these problems. “I can announce that we have reached agreement with those companies, which actually are owned by our own people. They recognized that their own national power company is in trouble, and they have agreed to allow PNG Power time to trade its way out of those difficulties,” said the minister. “It is not a company that can easily be sold just to get out of the mess like that, in the immediate term and the near future PNG Power will not be sold, not at fire sale prices where our people will not get a decent return on this company and its assets.” On top of all these, the minister told parliament that the government has also put together something that should help the company back on its feet. “It is not a company where we’ve ignored, we’ve invested a lot of time and very soon with the approval of the prime minister, there is a rescue package that has been proposed to cabinet. Cabinet should be able to approve it, we will then see things being turned around.” “Yes, it is a problem company, but we are not sitting back and allowing it to go down further, we are doing everything we can to rescue it and turn it around,” he added. Minister Duma said all these when responding to questions from the East Sepik Governor Allen Bird during question time in parliament, on the power issues in his provinces and the overall issues PNG power currently facing. Caption: PNG Power has major debt crisis on hand.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs Justin Tkatchenko has announced that the next high-profile individual to visit the country will be the Prime Minister for India Narenda Modi, when he visits the country in May to meet with Pacific Island leaders in May. The minister said the Indian Summit with Pacific Island Leaders will take place on the 21st of May and onwards. It will see the Indian PM also hold bilateral meetings with heads of Pacific Island states on political and business partnership. Fourteen Pacific Island state leaders will meet up in Port Moresby to attend the summit. “This is a historical event; we have never had the prime minister of one of the biggest leading economies come to Papua New Guinea (PNG) before. Now, that shows you the commitment that India wants to play in the region and with PNG going forward,” said the minister. The minister also made it clear that PNG is co- hosting this summit with India. The event will all take place in Port Moresby city.

The recently launched Moresby South 5 Year District Development Plan aims to continue to empower the people by improving basic services provided to the two thousand plus population living in the electorate. The Member of Parliament (MP) for Moresby South and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Justin Tkatchenko, when launching his district development plan last night in Port Moresby, said the five-year plan also covers both new projects and current projects in the electorate. Some of the areas covered in the five-year plan include education, health, community development and the settlement issues. MP Tkatchenko said the development plan is all about empowering the people. “I think over the last ten years, we have done massive infrastructures with our governor, and we have shown what can be achieved in that regard, but we now have looked in a different direction,” said the MP. Giving an example of the work done so far, he said in the last ten years over 10, 000 people have benefited through education assistance, which he said is about 5% of a 200, 000 plus population. “So, we still got a lot of work to do in empowering our youths, empowering our women, empowering our community to make them self-sufficient.” “We want you to be economically independent, we want you to be economically empowered,” he said. Tkatchenko further elaborated that in the last ten years in his term in office as MP, a lot was delivered to his people like the construction of eight new market facilities, new health facilities like the one at the Koki Wanigela village and the new state of the art district hospital, to name a few. The member also reiterated a very important point, which he said continues to ensure success in the delivery of services to his people, and that is to put the resources available to good use and good partnerships. The key, he said, was putting the resources into the right places, not wasting the opportunities and good working partnership between the National Capital District (NCD) Governor Powes Parko, the prime minister and his government, and the communities. “I can tell you know, every single toea that I got from the national government from the DSIP and the partnership that I have with the governor through the NCD budget, go straight into the development of Moresby South for your benefit and your family and community.” Meanwhile, the MP also said that the plan will also set a benchmark for future developments in an electorate that is rapidly developing. “We want to set a benchmark for the Marape government, we’re going to say that this is what can be achieved. We will use this five years plan as a benchmark, so in five years’ time in 2027 when I stand up again, you can say whether I have achieved that or not.”

Nasfund Contributors Savings and Loans Society (NCSL) has assured its members that their contributions are safe and secure despite the shutdown of its system due to a cyber security threat. According to the NCSL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr. Vari Lahui, they have had to shut down their online portal and other services to protect the entire system from being breached and data stolen. “This issue happened on Wednesday 1st of March when we were starting out start of the day process, when we identified a threat in our system and so based on the expert advice we received, we decided to voluntarily shutdown the system.” “The reason why we wanted to do this is that the threat we identified had the potential to provide further issues for us and complications for us,” he explained. He said while the shutdown is in effect, NCSL team will continue to go through the system, better identify the threat and have it sorted out, so that the system can be safe to go back on line. However, he re-assured the members of NCSL that all their funds and information on whatever transactions done before the shutdown, are intact and safe. He added that no data was stollen. “I want to convey to our members that their funds are safe and secure, there are no loss of data. This is contrary to some of the false information that is being propagated out there by some people. To the contrary, the members funds are safe, and they will notice this when we bring the services up when they check their balances.” Mr. Lahui also confirmed that the system should be up and running in the next seven days, in the meantime members wanting to do emergency transactions can do so manually at the NCSL branches located through the country.  

The upcoming Papua LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) project, apart from the general economic benefits that it will be generating, the project will create opportunities for people through spinoff business activities. That is exactly what the Central Province Governor, Rufina Peter, wants to create for her people in anticipation of the commencement of the construction phase of Papua New Guinea’s next large scale LNG project. She revealed that the provincial government will assist locals to get into agrobusinesses to support the Papua LNG project. She said agrobusiness is one potential spinoff businesses that the people of Central province can tap into. “I would not want the people of Central province to miss the opportunities presented, things like food to meet the demand of the workers of the project on its various phases it progresses.” “We have already started talking to Laba International and look at how we can try and do a largescale commercial agriculture to feed the Papua LNG during its peak of construction.” She said that these are things that the provincial government is looking into in preparation to meet the demands that will be required by the project. “We are also looking at many other areas like in infrastructure, in training that we probably missed in the areas that we require to empower our people to build capacity to develop our province.” She added that they have already started working on some of these areas together with their stakeholders to make it happen for the provincial government.  

Taxis and buses in the city of Port Moresby, as a mark of respect for the murder of one of their colleagues in the Central province yesterday, staged a convoy around the city to pay their respects. According to the Second in Charge (2IC) of National Capital District (NCD) traffic police, Inspector Patrick Lepo, the public transport operators were supposed to meet at the Kone Tigers oval at Waigani, but that has not happened yet. Inspector Lepo also said that the taxis and Public Motor Vehicles (PMV) seem to be operating normally today despite the convoy that was staged during the morning period. A look around the city by PNG Hausbung this afternoon also confirmed that statement from the Inspector that all taxis and PMVs were on the road doing their normal business. Meanwhile, the alleged murder of the taxi driver took place just outside of the city of Port Moresby at the Boera village area, just a couple of meters away from the PNG LNG plant site. It was alleged that the vehicle (Taxi) was found at another location and the body of the driver at another location within the large Boera area. Police are continuing the investigation to put together what actually happened and hopefully generate some leads to the potential suspects involved in the killing of the taxi driver.

The people in Porgera and neighboring Paiam town will now have access once again to the financial and banking services provided by the BSP Financial Group Limited (BSP). This after the bank re-opened its Porgera sub- branch on Tuesday 07th March after a year of closure as a result of security issues during the 2022 National General Elections that force the sub- branch to close its doors. In announcing the re-opening of its operations in Porgera, BSP Group CEO Mark Robinson said now that the sub- branch has re- opened, the people must now take ownership of the banking facility and look after it so that BSP can continue to better serve the people in Porgera. Following the election related violence that resulted in the closure of the BSP sub- branch, BSP as a service provider and business, is concerned about the law and order issues that continue to impact communities, not just in Porgera, but across the country. “Law and order is a continuous issue faced by our branches in local communities. Whilst there is a need for banking services in these communities, criminal attacks and law and order issues put the safety of BSP staff at risk. The safety of BSP staff takes absolute priority,” said Mr. Robinson. “We are the only bank operating in Porgera and withdrawal of our services since May 2022 has deprived our customers who rely on our services where no other banks are willing to offer banking services in this province as well as many other areas in PNG.” Mr. Robinson sadly added that if any further security issues encountered will likely result in the permanent closure of the branch which would leave Porgera without commercial banking services. Despite the law-and-order challenges that continue to confront BSP, BSP operates a network of 86 branches and sub- branches located in all the provinces of PNG with many of these branches operating at a loss to BSP. BSP also continues to open new branches in the country with the recently opened Lending Centre in NCD, the Eriku Branch in Lae, Morobe, the Koroba Branch in Hela, Palmalmal in East New Britain, Namatanai in New Ireland Province, and the soon to be opened Dobel Branch in Mt Hagen.  

The Papua LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) project is a step closer to its construction phase after the joint venture partners and the state announced that the project has moved on to the Front- End Engineering Design (FEED) phase. The Minister for Petroleum, Kerenga Kua, when speaking during the announcement on last night at the APEC in Port Moresby by Total Energies and the government, said this project will result in good economic growth for Papua New Guinea (PNG). The minister said that the people can look forward to substantial benefits for the country that will trickle down to the people. The Papua LNG is a joint venture partnership between Total Energies as the lead developer, ExxonMobil, and Santos. The Papua LNG project, instead of developing its one supply facilities, will be using the existing ones in the PNG LNG project, hence, the joint venture partnership. Minister Kua said that the partnership in this project has also opened opportunities for state owned enterprise Kumul Petroleum Holdings Limited (KPHL) on behalf of the state to possibly build an electric LNG train within the PNG LNG processing plant facility in the Central province. The electric train will use electricity generated from green energy instead of gas in order to minimize carbon emissions. This the minister said is a special feature of the Papua LNG project. Meanwhile, Prime Minister (PM) James Marape and his senior ministerial team, after meeting with senior executives of Total Energies, were told that the Papua LNG was on schedule. The FEED stage of the project will now move to early preparatory work and as well as the Final Investment Decisions (FID), which should happen later this year or early next year. This should see the construction phase of the project start in 2024 and the first shipment of gas from the Papua LNG to start going out in 2027.

The two clubs that were involved in on-field violence during the finals of the Port Moresby Australian Football League (AFL) competition last year, have been allowed to remain in the competition. Port Moresby AFL Association President Mr. Douglas Lai said the association decided against banning the Lamana Dockers and Gordons Kokofas. “We have decided to let it go for the sake of progress in the competition and I hope they have learnt their lessons and would do better this year,” said the president. The decision against the removal of the two clubs was reached during the association meeting held over the weekend. The association meeting also covered a couple of agendas including the scheduling of the AFL pre-season and welcoming the newcomers to the city competition. That new club is from PNG Power and will join the competition for this season, while the Port Power club from the Port Moresby Technical Collage, will be fielding a female’s team for the first time this season. This now brings the total number of clubs in the competition to 11 clubs for the men’s division and 7 clubs for the women’s division.