William Duma

This was announced today by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill in a media conference.

The COI will be set up to investigate allegations that have been leveled against some senior Ministers of the Government and senior members of government departments.

This follows a full examination of the breach that was provided to the Prime Minister by government agencies that were involved in the Manumanu land deal in the Central Province.

He said failure by the Prime Minister to impose tougher disciplinary actions against the two ministers goes to expose O’Neill’s failure to fight corruption among his cabinet members.

“Let me remind the PM that Papua New Guineans are intelligent and they are watching and judging every step of the government,” Polye said.

The private purchase of the land valued at K46.6 million by Kumul Consolidated Holdings b onehalf of the State on a the company in question with links to a senior cabinet minister had been the hot question in the second week of Parliament sitting.

MPs present in the Chamber were shocked as they witnessed something most  unusual happened.

Hagen MP and State Enterprises Minister William Duma walked straight to Western Highlands Governor and former Prime Minister Paias Wingti and slapped him on the face and walked off.

The motive behind Duma’s action's are not known.

Members beside Wingti had to walked over and comfort him.

Wingti, however, was so embarrassed he left the Chamber.

The Bill just fell short by one vote of the required majority vote of 56, with seven members voting against it.

After passing the Tobacco Control Bill of 2016, it looked like the Water Sanitation Bill would follow suite however, the Bill did not muster the required number.

This followed a speech by Opposition Member Kerenga Kua, who labeled the Bill as another instrument that will only raise taxes and costs even more for ordinary citizens.

The original prize money for the championships was K22,000 given by major sponsor, PNG Power. But this increased by another K10,000 thanks to the support from State Enterprises Minister and Member for Hagen Open, William Duma. President of the PNG Softball Federation, Ralph Tarasomo  explained the break up of the prize money this morning.

First place: K7,000, Second place: K5,000, Third place: K2,500 and Fourth place: K1,500.

He said the break up amount for the different placings is the same for both the men's and women's divisions. 

The finals are underway now. 

This was highlighted by local MP William Duma while presenting his 2015 District Services Improvement Program and District Support Grants acquittal reports to the Department of Implementation and Rural Development last week.

One of the major success of the DDA is the up-grading and sealing of all feeder and new roads within the district.

Duma who is also the Minister for State Enterprise announced that infrastructure development projects worth over K20 million would be expended, K10,872,828.44 had already been expended.

Sandaun Governor Amkat Mai questioned State Enterprise Minister William Duma if the state-owned PNG Power could connect Wutung to the Vanimo electricity grid.

Mai said the provincial government has already spent K1.2 million to purchase a diesel generator from Indonesia. However, it needs K8 million to connect the transmission lines to the country’s international border with the West Papua Province of Indonesia.

Vanimo-Green MP Belden Namah was heard telling his provincial governor to allocate money to fund the project.  

Duma is the Minister for Public Enterprises and State Investment and his party is a major coalition party in the O’Neill-Dion Government with seven MPs.

Parliament will sit at 2pm to discuss the motion which is the only business of the day.

Duma told Loop PNG that all parties to the coalition government are intact and has confidence in the prime minister.

He said the allegations for Prime Minister to step aside are before the Courts and the law enforcement agencies are dealing with him, as an individual.

Duma said in Parliament today that SOEs must not enjoy monopolies.

He made this statement following comments from Ijivitari MP David Arore who called on Water PNG to establish water reservoirs in Popondetta town.

Duma said that among all the water centres that are being operated by Water PNG, only Lae, Kokopo and Mt Hagen are profitable.

All other centres are regarded as social services and Northern Province falls into that category.

“This reflects the competence of all our SOEs.

The minister responsible for State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) was responding to Questions without Notice from Southern Highlands Governor William Powi during Parliament question time this morning.

 Powi asked the minister to give an update on the disagreement by the PPL workers and it's union. "There is no industrial dispute arising from terms and condition of our employees of the company," Duma said.

 "There is no agenda of this government to sell this company to foreigners, reduce terms and conditions of employees or retrenchment."