Ben Micah

Micah spoke this morning on day one of the PNG Mining and Petroleum Conference at the Crowne Plaza hotel, Port Moresby.

In his presentation on Managing Government Businesses for Public Benefits, Micah said he would ensure change to improve the SOE’s for them to become the drivers of economic development and wealth creation for the country.

He said the regulatory and political environment had contributed to some of the dilemmas of the SOE’s.

“Today we are working on reforming these SOE’s structurally, including changing their operating environment.

KCH was previously known as the Independent Public Business Corporation( IPBC).

PNG Ports declared a full dividend of K17 million at the end of the 2012 Financial Year.

In a presentation, PNG Ports Board chairman Nathaniel Poya  declared the second instalment payment of K8.5 million.

“You have proven that you are worthy of the stewardship that you have been given and you have been accountable to the shareholder, congratulations.

"The comments were in jest - light humour about sports and anyone listening would have heard the context in which I spoke which is common in sporting banter. The local ABC journalists like to sensationalise stories and make the country look bad.”

Mr Micah said the ABC tried to made parallels with the young New Zealand athlete who made cannibal comments and tried to suggest there was hypocrisy.

A three judge Supreme Court bench consisting of justices Collin Makail, David Cannings and Terence Higgins delivered their decision this morning granting him leave to get a judicial review over the manner in which he was referred by the OC to the Public Prosecutor’s office.

Micah on July 2 also succeeded in restraining Public Prosecutor Pondros Kaluwin from acting on his referral by the Ombudsman Commission on four allegations of misconduct in office in another Supreme Court decision.

Justice Collin Makail siting as a single Supreme Court judge asked lawyers to make further submissions as to whether he has jurisdiction to grant stay as a single judge.

Makail made this comments following a similar application that came before him last year where he granted a stay order that was later dismissed.

He asked lawyers representing the state and Micah to provide before his court previous case laws that states a single sitting judge in the Supreme Court has the jurisdiction to grant stay on an application.

A similar order was refused by the National court earlier.

His lawyers Mal Varitimos (QC) and Nelson Saroa, argued that the Ombudsman Commission acted beyond its jurisdiction by not giving Micah the opportunity to respond to further investigation information after his first response in August 2014.

Varitomos said there were subsequent events that led to additional information through summons issued to the Managing Directors of IPBC and Grand Papua Hotel where the allegations arose.