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There are two opposing sides on this. A tax would be beneficial if the tax revenue is used in facilitating economic growth and development. Yes, it would cost the country's welfare in terms of the cost of communication being handed down to the end users and various other constraint will be faced. But on the upside, infrastructure development from tax revenue will greatly assist economic development in the long run. The only question is, if the tax is implemented, how will the tax revenue be used?

Monopoly brings corruption and unfair transaction. It must be stopped for the people. People and government can become likely to be a hostage by a company in the monopoly market. Turnover tax is like VAT. It is charged on companies but it increases the burden to poor PNG consumers. I don't think that Irish billionaire Denis O'Brien, the owner of Digicel, doesn't understand how to rightly pay the corporate income tax in PNG. He is manipulating local governments and their unsophisticated taxation where he operates telecommunication business. They are mostly undeveloped and highly corrupted countries across the Caribbean, Central America, and Oceania regions. I think that the corporate income tax must be firstly improved to collect the tax revenue for PNG government public service rather than introducing the turnover tax shifting the burden to PNG mobile communication consumers. A considerate bill most of the people can consent to makes people trust their government!

Hello Gabriel, thank you for your comment. You are quite right. I'd like to note that at the time this post was published, the photo caption clearly stating the origin of the photo was visible, but it was lost in the intervening years when this blog was re-designed. The editors have restored the caption now. Nevertheless, I appreciate your concerns about the perceived misrepresentation and I apologise for that. Thank you, Camilla

I believe Bal Kama's report here is based on media reports only and his report have not cited from actual reliable source. What he presented here is the same narration which the opposition had originated. The real scenario here is that the senior ministers just defected from PNC led government was because they have not been served their request by O'Neill to satisfy their personal needs and not actually for people.

Thanks for this great overview Tony. The easiest pathway for Indigenous participation in the aid program is for contractors to engage Indigenous sub-contractors and individual consultants on existing facilities. DFAT should be encouraging this because it helps to achieve the outcomes of Australia's domestic policies as well as its UNHRC pledges. Australia's application for candidature to the UN Human Rights Council, 2018-2020 included 'Advance the economic rights of indigenous peoples and harness the knowledge and expertise of indigenous Australians in the design and delivery of its aid programme. We recognize that indigenous businesses can provide expert, culturally appropriate, “peer-to-peer” assistance to other indigenous communities in developing countries).

The same people are moving here and there and there won't be any solution . Our Constitution governing our leaders are wick and can be manipulated by them.(Politicians) . Even a new Government is formed they will continue to fall victim of or existing laws. Our Constitutions needs to be reviewed and overhaul. Our Constitutions are colonial once and are outdated. Any Nations to prosper at a fast rate , only will depend tougher laws to govern. Today you see politicians move around freely like stray dogs who have no control. We need to tighten our laws on musrooming political parties. A small nation with too many political parties which brings confusion to citizens during elections. We must have less then Five political parties with clear policies so our people will be in a better position to understand it's policies and vote. Laws governing DSIP funds should also be tighten to enable delivery of goods and services. Up untill today we don't have proper check and balance on the disbursement of K10 million anually. In a full five year term a politician is paid K50 million as DSIP funds but very little is done. All the money sits in MPs account because there is no proper check and balance on all MPs. Fake acquittals are done and polish to attract new funds. Acquitals are blindly received and signed and new funds are released. No officers are assigned to g9 into electorate to physically check and confirm whether the acquitals truly worth the development on the ground. Also constitution governing other areas of heads of departments implementing government policies should also be tighten so service deliever y is very effect. Generally , government did it's part to allocate funds but funds interms of developments failed and our people are suffering. Our country's Constitutions needs complete overhaul to give clear vission to our leaders to have fear in our constitutions and execute their duties beyond our expections to bring our nation forward.

There's still the question on why the MPs decided to leave now, and not earlier? Have they suddenly developed a higher moral compass while O'Neil was in China? The corruption, economic mismanagement, O'Neil's one man show, etc., are not new. The defecting MPs were content to support O'Neil in the past 7 years with these accusations directed at the government. They even supported O'Neil in the 2016 VONC when issues such as Parakagate and UBS loan were very much fresh. The problem the opposition will have if they are successful, is that they cannot investigate much of the issues they claim are wrong as some of the defecting MPs were implicated in the issues. VONC in PNG is an expression of struggle between two factions to gain access to state resources, which by logic of a Westminster system, is controlled by the executive side.

Papua New Guinea is not Africa as most would possibly think. Although, issues about health, politics, economy etc are vital for academic debate and discussions I would suggest writers should be very cautious of using the pictorial images that they use for their academic publications. The image as used and portrayed in this article must be taken from somewhere in Africa and inserting it in an article that talks about Papua New Guinea is indeed an intellectual fallacy. I suggest the author of this article to withdraw the image inserted in this article. Thank you.

I seriously wish I could believe this:- "That these MPs are putting conscience before convenience and principles before perks is likely to inspire other MPs in the O’Neill government to defect"..... Bal Kama, see above in this article. Right now, this sounds far too idealistic and far from the truth. The painful reality is not the horse trading going on between the Opposition and the Government, but the trading that is going on within each group. And this is going on within the so-called moral Opposition. And therein lies the ugly face of corruption smiling before it possibly becomes the new Government. This is the same old same old well worn VONC political move that happens all the time. Remove one set of corrupt politicians for another set of corrupt government politicians. Nothing unexpected about this. Goes on all the time with the VONC. Also nothing unexpected about the HOPE which we all hold with bated breath as that VONC goes ahead. How so very sad! From a country that had so much promise 40+ years ago. Maybe we need new thinking around our voting system; new thinking about what constitutes a political representative (get rid of the "leader" mentality); new thinking about how to move forward in spite of the fact that our politicians have always been corrupt since the early 1980s and given that a VONC is simply a constitutional "windfall" strategy for another set of ambitious politicians to get to the pot of gold. Can some of you great thinkers start to think outside of the political square and come up with something that could, maybe just could, work for PNG. Instead of yet again another "windfall" played out through the VONC while citizens of PNG burn.

Thanks Bal for this commentary The leadership of PM Peter O’Neill is likely to face continuous backlash leading into the possible motion of non-confidence vote (VoNC) later this month. The deferment of two weeks normal Parliament sitting time on May 07 to May 28 is actually seen as a tactical approach to avoid the motion if it goes through the normal process. This is not a new approach since PM O’Neill has been doing the same in the previous sittings when a VoNC is looming. What is different now than the previous political development leading to a possible VoNC is very critical. Now we saw a mass exodus of senior MPs including ministers leaving the O’Neill Government. They claim that the PM is “running a one man show”, in most cases bypassing and breaching normal government processes and regulations and lack of consultations. The PNC as the ruling party has 46 members originally and now it has reduced down to 28, and this has demonstrated that there is strong resentment in the PNC party led by Peter O’Neill. In addition, senior ministers in government have resigned. Not only that, three Governors from O’Neill’s tribal ethnic Provinces left him including his own Governor of SHP. Now PM Peter O’Neill is facing a serious problem on all fronts: in the PNC party, in the NEC, in the tribal Provinces that he originally garnered support. On top of these is the looming VoNC motion, but if he survives the VoNC the PM still need to mend the rest of the problems. Whilst considering that, Peter O’Neill is the CEO of a country and he needs to live up to that expectation. Should he bored down with sorting in-house matters or stand bold and address the needs of the country. The opposition team are boastful of its 50 strong team and will continuously fight to achieve one mission. That is to remove Peter P. O’Neill from the PM post so that the “one-man show” syndrome can be put to rest.

In welcoming Patrick Kilby’s review of Peter Britton’s new book on AVI, Working for the World, it is worth emphasizing that it describes an era when NGO relations with government were both respectful and robust. This enabled OSB/AVI to engage in activities that would be impossible today and to have a voice about them at the same time. In his speech to launch the book, Gareth Evans stressed the importance of this: “Since the early 1980s there has been no question that OSB/AVI has been anything other than consummately professional, outstandingly effective at doing what it does: plenty of good examples from the 1980s and ‘90s are given in the concluding part of the book, on programs in Indochina, Africa, Indonesia, PNG and the Pacific Islands, and East Timor. But … there is perhaps a little distance to go in demonstrating persuasively that it really is a non-governmental organization, and not just a very professional service provider. I don’t underestimate for a moment the enormous difficulty -- clearly faced not just by AVI, but by all the humanitarian organizations working in this space – of treading a genuinely independent path when an organization is so enormously dependent on a single government funder. There are only so many risks that an organization can prudentially take. The real need for governments to be as relaxed as we hopefully were in the early to mid-90s about robust political debate, including sharp policy criticism from time to time. I hope my current Labor colleagues are listening, and will be on their case if they are not!” (https://www.gevans.org/speeches/Speech685.html) While government funding for NGOs is welcome and important, so too is critical debate. Thanking you

"PNG is Pasifika by necessity: A response to Martyn Namorong" https://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2019/04/png-is-pasifika-by-necessity-a-response-to-martyn-namorong-.html