PM James Marape

North Fly Member, James Donald asked Prime Minister Marape to update the house on the progress of the Porgera mine restart operations and asked the PM if he could confirm the government’s plans for the mine.

Prime Minister Marape thanked the people of the impacted areas for their support. He said the government has received very minimal distractions and disruptions from landowners and respective provincial governments. 

Prime Minister James Marape made these remarks when addressing a morning meeting with ministers, departmental secretaries and heads of Government agencies and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) on Tuesday.

Marape announced that the Prime Minister’s Department, PM Marape will carry out spot checks of all departments, agencies and SOEs in the lead-up to 2022.

“In the face of the coming elections, many times, work (in the public service) slows down,” Marape said.

“I stress to you: No work must slow down.”

The Prime Minister addressed members of the public service and members of Parliament in a meeting this morning at the APEC Haus when these announcements were made.

“…This morning I wanted to lay down the rule and made with absolute clarity that politicians have their space and public servants have their space,” he said. “When politics has been played out, public servants must not get engaged in politics but must carry on work.”

Prime Minister said historically, almost a whole year is lost in the lead up to elections with preparations and even after the elections are over.

The Government is also moving to open up the southern part of West New Britain with a K50 million infrastructural support over the next four years to 2025 by linking Kimbe to Kandrian-Gloucester district.

These investments are part of the massive Connect PNG, an infrastructure development programme by the Government to take focus of roads development out of Port Moresby and into the rural areas of Papua New Guinea.

Flying in straight from Morobe Province on a chopper where he was attending a Wafi-Golpu landowners consultative meeting, the Prime Minister stopped on Maklos Island where he opened a five-in-one classroom.
He then stopped at Amulut where he was given an opportunity to see how the community was engaging in small business enterprises to get along in spite of the remoteness of the area.
The classrooms cost K100,000 and comes from the PSIP funding.

PM Marape said the construction and upgrading of the Kimbe Hospital from Level 5 to Level 6, is part of the Government's plan to construct good regional and provincial hospitals.

He said he will ensure the hospital is constructed and delivered by 2025, when PNG celebrates 50 years of Independence.

He went on to thank the Hospital staff and management for working hard to take care of the sick during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was referring to recent media releases by Twinza claiming that the Government was not honoring terms in the Pasca A Gas Project agreement, which was announced on July 13.

Marape said the media releases were continuous and had painted a bad picture of the country as a place to invest.

He suggested that Twinza look at the example of Barrick, whose executives had flown in from around the world for negotiations on the Porgera mine, rather than continuously attacking the PNG Government on media.

He said this in the recent Parliament session when answering a question from Unggai-Bena MP, Benny Allan, on alleged cases of corruption and inefficiency within the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations.

Mr Allan, citing an internal audit report leaked by a whistleblower, claimed “systematic corruption” was rampant within the department and other departments and agencies of government.

Prime Minister Marape, on behalf of Labour and Industrial Relations Minister, Tomait Kapili welcomed such a question by Unggai-Bena MP.

Namah says the rights and freedoms of these employees are being placed at risk by such company policy.

“Under whose jurisdiction do these companies operate? We make laws on this floor of Parliament, either they follow our laws or they break our laws. And we protect the interest, welfare and freedoms of our people, that’s what I’m saying,” said Namah.

Member for Ijivitari Open, Richard Masere called a point of order to explain that businesses have a responsibility to protect their interests. 

James Marape who was the then Finance Minister in the 2014 government and part of the cabinet that approved the controversial K3 billion UBS loan appeared before the inquiry on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister said his views remained that the policy that the policy submission on the UBS loan was “bulldozed” by the then Prime Minister Peter O’Neill on March 6^th, 2014 during the cabinet meeting.

“There was no prior policy announcement on this matter. It arrived on the 6^th of March and it was processed then,” said PM Marape.