University of Papua New Guinea Madang students 2016

The permanent exclusion of applicants; Livai Kuaken, Arthur Amos, Jamie Sali, Hercules Jim, Alois Kaluweh, Chris Kipalan and Steward Thoke, is now temporarily stayed by the court until the matter returns on Oct 20.    

Their lawyer, Ramcy Pariwa, will now have 14 days to file for judicial review and serve to respondents; Dr Mange Matui as acting pro vice-chancellor, academic & student affairs of the University of PNG, Prof Albert Mellam as vice-chancellor of University of PNG, UPNG and the State.

An inter-parte (all party) hearing is expected on Oct 20.

Duban, who is also the Petroleum and Energy Minister, today met with the UPNG and Divine Word University Madang students and presented them cheques of K50,000 and K10,000 respectively.

“The K10,000 was for the DWU Madang Students Association to host their Madang Day later this year,” UPNG Madang student Len-Desiree Mandie told Loop PNG.

“Before the presentation there was a small reconciliation ceremony between the UPNG MSA and Mr Duban,” said Mandie.

An executive of the UPNG Madang Students Association, Aditha Boroman, told Loop PNG: “This initiative is our way of thanking the Madang Provincial Government for providing us airfares to return home after the academic year got terminated.”

Boroman, who is a final year linguistics student, said they started as early as 6am.

“We divided ourselves into two groups. One group started from Tusbab up to the Madang provincial administration and headquarters while the other followed the route to town.”