National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority (NAQIA)

Managing director, Joel Alu, clarified the common misconception, saying NAQIA was established under the ‘National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority Act 1997’.

“We want budget appropriation,” he stated.

“The good thing is that the Medium-Term Development Strategy IV – that was recently launched – captures biosecurity. We are happy that there would be budget appropriation through that document. Before the previous budget policy document, NAQIA was never captured because everybody thought that we were under DAL.

Apart from the CBB, NAQIA is also managing the outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in Southern Highlands, Enga and Hela.

Biosecurity refers to animal and plant health measures that prevent the introduction, establishment and spread of pests and diseases.

This is one of the core functions of NAQIA; it plays an important role in supporting the agriculture sector where more than 80 percent of Papua New Guineans derive their livelihood from.

The policy and planning manager of the National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority, Hunter Moi, outlined that the Pacific leaders noted that some of the island nations’ laws were not in line with international trade obligations and standards.

PNG is a member of the World Trade Organization and thus, is subject to obligations under the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the Trade Facilitation Agreement.

“So they tried to get all the countries in the region to harmonise their laws towards it,” said Moi.

Biosecurity refers to animal health and plant measures that prevent the introduction, establishment and spread of pests and diseases that will affect our food security.

The National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority (NAQIA) says PNG’s existing regulatory framework for biosecurity and trade in agricultural products is outdated and inadequate for existing international trade challenges and opportunities.  

The managing director of the National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority (NAQIA), Joel Alu, said this is the final workshop.

“We delivered our biosecurity policy in June last year – during the election period,” he explained. “So from that biosecurity policy, one of the recommendations was to deliver a biosecurity bill. So this bill is crafted from the policy document that we have.”

The biosecurity bill is a key vehicle that will implement the Biosecurity Policy 2022-2030.

Minister for Agriculture and Livestock, John Simon revealed this in a press conference on Saturday.

Minister said it is not a health threat to humans if they come in contact with pigs, but it will greatly affect those who raise pigs as a source of income and food.

The African swine fever virus causes a hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates in domestic pigs; it causes the death of animals as quickly as a week after infection.

The MAF service said they received an emergency call asking them to travel immediately to Edwaki to bring eight patients to Vanimo Hospital for immediate medical attention.

The eight reportedly had food poisoning.

There are still confusing reports whether they are the victims of the recently reported outbreak of maggots found in live animals in the hinterlands of West Sepik Province.

Officers from the National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority (NAQIA) are currently in West Sepik Province to investigate these reports.