Finance Minister James Marape

Polye urges O’Neill to talk with aggrieved landowners

Opposition Leader Don Polye made the call upon hearing claims that the government plans to use police and defence personnel to contain the situation.

“The Prime Minister, Finance Minister James Marape, Planning Minister Charles Abel and Treasury Minister Patrick Pruaitch must not use the disciplined forces to contain the situation.

“Their engagement will not solve any problem. It will exacerbate the situation,” says Polye.

He said the shutdown of the Hides gas plant by angry landowners over delay in LNG project related funds reflects the government’s incompetency.

Marape warns provincial treasurers not to ask for allowance

Marape was responding to Bogia MP John Hickey asking the Minister to look into issues in his district regarding district treasurer who claimed to steal almost a million kina from the DSIP funds.

Hickey claimed that his district treasurer has conspired with Finance officers and misused the funds.

Marape said the issue is serious in nature as those funds are taxpayer’s money and must not be misused.

Polye demands truth about foreign reserves

 Polye claims the back log is about K2 billion.

He has queried Mr Marape whether the government had any corrective measures to ease the bottleneck to continuously spin the wheels of the business activities in the country.

His final question was why the local currency was continuing to devalue  against the US dollar since 2013.

In response Marape said the trade (export and import) cover would be K5.7 billion at the end of this year.