James Marape

This was the message Prime Minister James Marape conveyed to Australia during his visit.

The Prime Minister returned from his trip this afternoon at the Jackson’s International VIP Terminal.

Speaking to media, he said a wide range of topics were covered with our neighbours, including the imbalance in trade, improving PNG’s local economy, the Manus issue as well as experiencing firsthand how local industries in Western Australia operate.

On Friday the PM addressed over 300 investors in Sydney, who he said were interested in PNG.

The National Housing Corporation has a huge asset base however, all properties are not fully accounted for.

Most properties have run down and are unfit for human occupation.

Housing Minister Justin Tkatchenko said: “This is the problem, we don’t know how many properties, how many houses NHC and also under NHEL (National Housing Estate Ltd) actually own.”

“My reference towards investors meeting us at where our law is, refers to projects coming up for review. In my view, and I stand to be corrected, our laws are tailored to attract investors, and (PNG) is not green field in areas of mining and oil and gas. We produce world class mining projects,” said Marape.

The Prime Minister’s response followed a series of questions raised by Member for Rabaul Dr Allan Marat, with regards to the number of PNG owned companies who specialise in the determining process of minable non-renewable resources.

His response came after Member for Moresby North-West, Sir Mekere Morauta, asked in Parliament if the company’s financial books can be made public.

Sir Mekere said: “There is a shortfall of K974 million as per the report from Treasury, and a K2 billion (shortfall), also according to Treasury. Why is this money still sitting out there? Prime Minister it’s reported that growth profit for Kumul Petroleum for 2017 was K1.4 billion but expenses, donations, debt payment and impairment and other costs, ate that K1 billion with only K300 million to be paid to the state.

East Sepik Governor Allan Bird said in Parliament yesterday that many cases posted on social media recently relate to violence against women where husbands kill wives; and boyfriends kill girlfriends without any actions taken by relevant agencies to punish those involved.

“People blo yumi, they must be able to operate freely without violence and intimidation from others. Na disla wok lo stat (to reach) ol epidemic proportions now. Pretty soon we’ll be dealing with violence like we are trying to deal with polyp.”

That equates to a little over 50 percent of the money that is found in our country every financial year.

The Prime Minister has urged senior public servants to raise the bar, considering the amount of money spent on them from the Waigani Public Accounts.

Marape issued the challenge at a meeting he organised for Ministers and Departmental Heads at the International Convention Centre in Port Moresby, on the 20th of June.

Prime Minister James Marape told the business community that everyone in this country, including businesses and politicians, will be bound by the law.

Speaking at the Speakers Investment Summit in Port Moresby, Marape said his government intends to remove impediments that hinder the flow of business.

“Gone are the days where you will think that you owe a favour to a politician for you to push your papers through,” said the PM. “We want to remove impediments in the system so that your project submissions, your dealing with government is done with less blockages.

This was the statement made by Prime Minister James Marape during today’s 2nd Speakers Investment Summit in Port Moresby, where he reiterated their goal of revamping the Government’s system to ensure there is efficiency and effectiveness when collecting taxes.

“Most, if not, all of you in this room this morning are regular, habitual, good corporate citizens of our country,” he said. “You pay your fair share of tax. But we believe that there’s enough room for collections that we are missing right now and that is something that we intend to do.

The announcement is expected this week.

Prime Minister Marape says one vice minister will be responsible for coffee and intervention in coffee, another will be responsible for copra, cocoa and palm oil while a third will oversee the livestock sector.

“I think we’ve given so much lip service to the agriculture space; that is the lowest hanging fruit in as far as giving back to our country and empowering our citizens,” said the PM.

As a result, SOEs are in for a restructure under the new Minister, Sasindran Muthuvel, who was the then West New Britain Governor.

“State Owned Enterprises are not declaring dividends to state,” said Marape.

“Many are working outside Treasury’s scrutiny. Many of our SOEs are building empires of their own. There will be a restructure in our SOEs. There will be greater visibility in Kumul Consolidated Holdings, we will set up other Kumul subsidiaries and the minister for SOE will be in charge of those areas.”