Comments

Thank you to the seven people who have taken the trouble to share their thoughts regarding mandatory mobile phone SIM card registration in Papua New Guinea. In response to Moses Sakai’s concerns about NICTA holding registration information, please note that the registration databases are not held by NICTA. In fact, the databases are held by the telecommunication companies themselves, i.e. Digicel and the entity that is currently being formed out of a merger of bmobile Vodafone and Telikom. John Purre, if a customer is uncertain about whether or not their SIM card has been registered, they should be able to ask their telecommunication provider. The physical location of some mobile phone handsets can be traced, for instance if the owner misplaces the handset or if it is stolen. You also asked how the Supreme Court’s ruling would benefit the general public. It may be that compulsory registration means that certain citizens are able to ask the police to pursue criminals who have been harassing them via their mobile phones. My concern though is that the process may lead to the deactivation of many mobile phones. Thanks again to those who have posted comments. Other comments are always welcome. Amanda 🙂 Dr Amanda H A Watson

Thanks Nicola. This is a critical piece of thinking at the moment - as we watch really brilliant and appropriate adaptive programs being dismantled by their inability to ‘fit the processes’ which are often used as a trump card by bureaucracies. Time to make the processes fit the program if we are serious about effective development.

Am sorry for my people in the village, especially my mum and dad. If they (NICTA) deactivate all the unregistered SIM Cards then I will suffer the most because NO SIM registration roll out in my district and village. Their rights of using the phone will be deprived.

Thanks for the update Dr Watson on SIM card registration and deactivation. To be honest, I feel unsafe when surfing the internet because all my SIM cards are registered because I know for sure that there are three entities that are tracking and tracing my online activities in terms of the websites that I'm visiting. 1. NICTA through the registration of the SIM card, 2. The web browser that I'm using 3. The website that I'm visiting through the use of cookies For the 2nd and 3rd, it's safe because they have the Privacy Policy that would protect user's privacy and even a web user can leave a visited website untraceable with the use of a strong VPN such as Nord VPN despite of the Privacy Policy. However, as a regular internet user, I'm not sure about the 1st one in terms of whether my privacy is safe or not even with the use of strong VPN like NordVPN. Secondly, is it necessary for government through NICTA to impose fines on telecommunication companies because of their lack of registering users SIM cards on time? This is bad. NICTA should at least give additional time to telecommunication companies to register unregistered SIM cards because NICTA started this. Otherwise it would be better if the government just do away with this Compulsory SIM card registration.

I think it's about time, we go through with diactivation of sim cards. Digicel is eating away huge amounts of money from it's users without undermining how dificult it's customers face, no potty on poor customers. All non registered customers nowadays pay more than the registered customers, and they feel the pain, but hard to talk over coz that's the service they are using. Deactivation will bring us back to old ways that we would not need phones anymore.

If the PNG Govt. coffers are so outstretched & the Economy is so limited as reported here, & they can't assist local communities in accessing mobile phone usage; then how can they afford to buy 40x Masserati cars & 8x Bentleigh cars which cost Millions of dollars & these have now been given to various politicians to drive around in whilst the money would have been better spent on education, health & communication access for PNG people.

First of all how can they (NICTA) possibly get all digicel users in PNG to register their SIM cards when they can't get people from the remote areas of PNG to register their SIMs? Common sense. Digicel cannot risk losing its customers when it has been putting great efforts into maintaining its business to grow in the Country. Whether the court agrees or disagrees with the Ombudsman Commission his point is totally and completely valid because it is concerning people from the remote parts of the country as no one has the right to deprive them of their rights to services provided in the country. The court has to take this into consideration or even better come up with ways to resolve this issue as we are all are entitled to our rights as individuals protected under the constitutional law. If NICTA wants to implement policies with regards to network security or other acts concerned then they have to consider people living in the remotest areas in the country because they are the ones missing out on everyday services and it will only be fair if they are also being served just as the people living in towns and cities.

How can you track on the use of mobile phone if the SIM is registered or not. Even those who registered, will the user still be able to track the use of his/her Mobile phone. The supreme court's decision, how will it benefit the general public? I believe Dr. Amanda Watson can answer these questions because it is the area of her expertise. Thank you! JP.

Thank you Mr Moses Sakai for this blog post on a most interesting topic. I have three questions. I was interested to read that the current Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea (PNG), James Marape, seems to be saying that there should be consideration of whether or not the death penalty should remain in the criminal code. Indeed, in the article you give a hyperlink to, he said in July this year that “I will allow Justice Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Davis Steven to pick up this conversation and for us to decide whether we still maintain the death penalty or shift away from that to life imprisonment.” This seems to suggest that Marape may be in favour of dropping the death penalty. Is that your reading of his view on the matter? How does his position differ from the stance that was held by former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill? Perhaps the current head of state is less firm about the need to enforce the death penalty. Is that correct? What is your analysis of that? The second question is about the so-called ‘study tour’ that was made a few years back I think into the possible execution methods that could be used if PNG wants to carry out the death penalty. I believe the team went to a few different countries to see how it is done elsewhere. It is an awful topic really, but what became of that? Presumably this multi-country tour cost PNG a lot of money and yet nothing has come of it. Am I correct? My third question is about PNG’s position in the international community on this issue. You state that “PNG has consistently voted against or abstained from UN General Assembly resolutions calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty”. That seems to suggest that PNG’s position generally is one of resisting calls for the abolition of the death penalty. However, you also state “Back in 2003, PNG was one of 75 countries that supported the UN Commission on Human Rights in passing a resolution encouraging all countries to abolish the death penalty and establish a moratorium on executions.” This seems to go against the earlier comment, or perhaps I have misunderstood, or maybe this occasion was an exception to the general practice of PNG in regard to most votes on the matter. Could you please explain this point? Thanks again for the thought-provoking piece. Dr Amanda H A Watson

It's a poor prosecution by the Ombudsman, if the first question didn't cite any act/regulation that breached a  specific freedom (I assume the citizen's right to freedom of expression). Begs the question, does the Ombudsman have competent lawyers to present complaints against the state at the Supreme Court level?  Second, if 40% of SIM owners are unregistered, then the telecommunications companies have just as much interest in getting these SIMS registered as the unregistered SIM owners. I assume the 40% are users in remote areas, who would use these SIMs largely to text and call only. However, if this is true, and if the telecommunications companies' largest revenue comes from other things such as internet services, then the companies wouldn't be motivated to register these SIMs. In Manus, the Digicel tower responsible for connecting islands to the south has not been operating since 2017, when locals stole the tower's solar panels. If this was a large revenue base, Digicel would have had the tower's solar panels replaced and guards stationed by now; as it is, Digicel can let these remote customers go, as richer, urban customers subsidise the cost of losing rural customers (the same issue with PNG Power and BSP). 

it Really saddens me about how we going to achieve that Goal of making "PNG Richest Black Nation in next 10 years" this isn't practicable . 80% of our total population is still influenced by Cultures.

I would love to see a simple migration path for our Pacific neighbours who wish to make Australia their permanent home - but I also believe that a general work visa for Pacific workers to come to Australia is very much needed - in any region and in any field of work. I will never downplay the significance of the SWP and the subsequent PLS and its economic benefits to those Pacific workers who are lucky enough to be chosen to participate. These programs have brought huge economic benefit back home to their communities. There are those Pacific Islanders who do not want to make Australia their permanent home but simply need employment to bring much-needed cash to their villages. Many return workers under the program invest in business opportunities back home which would never have been possible if it weren't for these programs. But they want to live with their families in the village that their forefathers built. They want to improve their own community's way of life, education, access to medical treatment and to create a thriving environment in their isolated villages. This means making the sacrifice of being away from their loved ones for many months under the labour mobility programs - working in Australia. The highly regulated SWP and PLS are not enough as mentioned in this article. Currently there are many Pacific Islanders in Australia working illegally for cash who have entered Aus under a visitors visa. These people have not been given the chance of legal employment under the 403 visas so they choose to come in, work for cash and sometimes overstay their visitor visa deadlines taking the gamble to earn as much money as they can until they are forced to return home to their own country. These people are desperate to get cash back home to their loved ones but if there was a simple Pacific working visa for Australia they could dictate their own timeframes without having to resort to working for unscrupulous employers who know these workers can never complain or report underpayments or mistreatment in the workplace. The work ethic of most Pacific Islanders is incredible. They are focused & highly motivated to earn money and send remittances home. They will work hard in Australia and be a benefit to their Australian employers building strong bonds between us and them. These ties carry over for generations; for example, our children's school now visits our workers' village every year bringing students and teachers from Queensland into their isolated jungle community schools. Friendships have formed which will last a lifetime. Let's bring in a simple working visa and let the workers direct their wages back home to where it is needed most. Let's empower them with opportunity to improve their home countries with economic benefit, hope and a sense of self worth. It's a no-brainer. We need them and they need us.