Comments

There are at least 2 more reasons for Marape joining Pangu: First, Ginson Sonau was rebuilding Pangu Pati after Pangu MPs resigned and joined Melanesia Alliance. Sonau was the only MP to remain as Pangu MP after the resignations. Six other MPs who left Pangu for Melanesian Alliance later returned to join Sonau - this was during the impasse. He invited those resigning from PNC and others leaving the government coalition to join Pangu. Second reason is that, Marape and other Highlands MPs cited the unfair distribution or lack of payment of LNG royalties as they resigned. Sonau had earlier taken the government to court on behalf of the Morobe people and had successfully stalled Wofu mine from starting operations, arguing that the deal did not benefit the people of Morobe. It made sense for Marape and other Highland MPs citing dissatisfaction over resources payments to join Soanu. When it comes to leadership, Sonau has proven his loyalty to Pangu by remaining with the party when the others reigned to join Melanesian Alliance. It is possible that he will remain the party leader. Marape on the other hand, has joined the party out of convenience. Marape has not made any substantial statements which identified himself as Pangu man, apart from stating that Pangu was "detaching" from PNC on 30 August 2019. He uses the words "I", "my government", the "Marape Manifesto" etc. He is yet to declare anything as Pangu Pati policy. It is possible that Sonau may take control of Pangu Pati with the intention of becoming the PM when PNG goes to polls in 2022.

Thanks Patrick for this piece of notable remarks. I concur with your remarks that, in the post-independence state of PNG, the core ingredients of the NGDPs had never been used through any medium for public education and appreciation. I remember once I learnt the NGDPs when I was doing grade 4 or 5 in primary education. In the later part of my life, I read it in libraries and other official government magazines. Even today, I cannot fully cite the NGDPs by heart, let alone other educated Papua New Guineans. Before the NGDP were developed, extensive consultations were held across the country when the medium of communication was limited - the radios, the TVs, social media, the internet and mobile phones, all so called modern communication modules. Now that we are exposed to these various modern communication systems, we should be better informed and inform other fellow citizens on the true meanings of the NGDPs. However, it is the contrary today as you have remarked. I came across few citings of the NGDPs in official PNG development plans and strategies. The obvious one is on “integral human development”. However, in the subsequent sections of the official documents and its practical application, the true meaning of this NGDP slowly disappeared, so as the core value of the preamble to the Constitution and the development aspirations it should otherwise promotes. I supported your suggestion for a constitutional week or day to honour the significance of NGDPs like the annual Independence Day celebration it could be a better idea for all educated citizens to learn and understand the core purpose of the NGDPs and inform fellow citizens. Various activities can be organised to add the significance of the NGDPs as the preamble of the PNG home grown Constitution.

Thank you Cindy, It's great to hear the post was useful to you. Terence

Thumbs up for your hardwork in putting up this kind of article. It is beneficial to me as a Solomon Islander as it helped me to really see where our electoral politics and administration is like at this time.

Thanks Michelle for this analysis. I would suggest your headline should read something like “will Marape stand the test of coalition politics and individual MPs politics in PNG?”. Let me provide a background on the above suggestion. PM Marape was the then right-hand man for PNC and former PM O’Neill. For the 7 years when PNC led the government, both Marape and O’Neill manoeuvred the PNG political and economic landscapes to their advantage. PM Marape has no intention of starting a new political party or aligning with one of the existing ones or pulling out from PM O’Neill when the call for PM O’Neill was clearly written on the walls across PNG. Marape was in a comfort zone with everything at his disposal with full trust from the Boss. In early 2019, there were talks within the PNC bloc that Marape would be sacked from his Finance portfolio. This will be a surprise and a terrible slap in the face for Marape, not only as a loyal servant to PM O’Neill but a core inner member of PNG, and would cause a tribal disposition for him as a brother from the Huli basin neighbouring with Ialibu ranges. To withstand the downplay of PM O’Neill, Marape has to take a stand that would look “man to man business” by resigning from the Finance portfolio and step out to support in disguise the call on the walls across PNG. This is the moment of make or break when the small opposition team were already in camp with only one slogan “not to change the PM O’Neill government but remove Peter O’Neill”. It was the moment for James Marape. During that occasion from March to May 2019, few political parties break and regroup with others, individual MPs were party hopping and moved from one camp to other, including Marape. For someone like Marape to stand bold and take leadership role in a party is still a long way down the lane. Though Marape joined the Pangu Parti to lead as the major coalition, he still regarded as one belong to PNC and moved because of some unknown reasons as an individual MP, not moved with a genuine call to change. The PM position came to him as a surprise and not a cleverly calculated achievement. Since PM Marape has no leadership experience in political parties and how to nurture coalition partners in a political landscape, he would have a hard time trying to keep everyone intact. Right now, Pangu Parti wants to sack all PNC MPs with portfolios currently in government, while Marape holds loyal to some of the PNC colleagues with portfolios. Should Marape bow to Pangu and coalition interest or keep his friends without O’Neill-it is not a simple decision to make. Currently, the NA led opposition team and key MP like Mekere have moved into government posing more challenge for Marape. The PM Marape was indecisive on the move and how strategically he could keep everyone happy and intact is a holy grail. The clear indecisive statement from the PM this week was, “any Minister in government who wants to move to the opposition can do so at their own will and who wants to stay can stay”. Such statement will determine PM JM position leading into 2022.

I think the 2019 PNG Update was more improved than the previous years. They at least gave the students opportunities to present their papers based on the awareness which they had conducted on Frieda Mine. Thanks much!

I am a Grade 12 student who attended Malala Catholic Secondary School and I studied science courses and I'm very interested in studying midwifery.

I wholeheartedly support Chief Ila Geno's personal intelligence. He is the living example to most of the public servants in Papua New Guinea. Value and ethical driven leadership is paramount in developing an economic democracy like PNG. The systematic and systemic corruption that cripples the pinnacle of our democracy is because our public servants are not upholding and practicing the ethical principles and conducting public administration. I hope many Papua New Guineans will change if they read this interesting article. Thank you Chief Ila for sharing your experience with us. May God bless.

Hi, I currently live in Lae PNG and am doing a research topic question on maternal health and infant mortality in PNG. I was wondering if you could please get in contact with me regarding some questions about issues and how they can be improved. Kind Regards, Rose

Steven thanks for your insightful comments. I hope you met our Impact Investment Manager Leata Alimoana Roberts who was also supporting the enterprises at the events last week in Auckland and Tauranga. As Pacific Rise implementing partner Pacific Trade Invest Australia is working closely with Pacific enterprises assisting them to scale and become investible. I also agree that there is a large need for pre investment business advisory support across the region and welcome the opportunity to engage with local firms who can deliver these professional services. Regards, Caleb.

Thanks Fiona. Great to get an insightful overview.

Thanks for the blog Caleb. I agree with your views on the changing approach of the diaspora’s support to their home economies. The shift from remittances to business investment -at a larger scale than the traditional micro-scale- is a trend we are seeing across our operations in the Pacific. I also agree with your views on the level of readiness of Pacific island business to take on private investment for impact purposes. Picking up your closing comments regarding development of sustainable Pacific businesses and the 'ecosystem' that these businesses can tap into to grow, I would like to highlight that in addition to the Australian Government funded projects referred to in your blog, it should be noted that the New Zealand Government is also incredibly invested in the Pacific diaspora’s contribution to the 'ecosystem' and economic development in the region. We here at DT Global (dt-global.com) are implementing the NZ MFAT-funded Business Link Pacific programme (businesslinkpacific.com) which is addressing the largely underdeveloped commercial market for local business advisory support services in the Pacific islands. At an event in Auckland last week run by Enterprise Angels, Purpose Capital and Pacific RISE there were a couple of Samoan businesses that were showcasing. The missing piece, as always seems to be the local ongoing business advisory support that enables these business to understand where they are, how they want to grow and what investment they want to take on. If this is provided from Australia or NZ to a “lucky few” using donor funding, our view is the local market for this kind of business advisory support never gets the chance to develop. An unashamed plug here for our current BLP-supported business advisory providers in Samoa: BDO Samoa, Isitolo Leota, SynBiz Financial Services and WE Accounting, who are all capable of providing pre-investment support to local firms and strongly utilise their diaspora networks in delivery of professional services. These local business advisory providers are developing a pipeline of local businesses that are interested to access finance and potentially develop their pitch to potential impact investors. Thanks again for the blog and the productive partnerships your team is facilitating. Cheers