State Owned Enterprises (SOEs)

Senior Member of Parliament and former Minister for Finance, Sir John Pundari claimed that the Government's priorities are misguided hence, nothing in tangible has been achieved so far.

“Let’s reset, refocus and address one challenge at a time. Patching the bleeding economy is more paramount now more than ever.

Sir John has called for a collective government approach by having a relook at priorities including cost-saving measures. He said this includes cutting back on overseas travels with a large entourage, and creating new ministerial portfolios.

To save the face of the SOEs, the Treasurer presented a K200 million funding to Kumul Consolidated Holdings (KCH) on Friday June 14^th.

After a 4-hour long meeting during which the Prime Minister was provided a full status report on the three State-owned enterprises, PM Marape said it was overdue that major efforts be put into these SOEs to help them equalize the community service obligation roles they have been playing with profit-making.

Minister Duma, was accompanied by Kumul Consolidated Holdings (KCH) Chairman, Moses Maladina, KCH Managing Director, Professor David Kavanamur and Acting Director Karl Yalo. Air Niugini Acting CEO, Gary Seddon, and his management team welcome the visitors.

An explanation has been given for the continuous power outage in the city, and it seems it all has to do with infrastructure needing an upgrade.

State Enterprises Minister William Duma said nearly all transmission lines in the grid and the equipment from the sub-stations are old and require replacements.

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.”