The Yama Files Part IV: Finance CoI Slams Yama

Facebook Witch-Hunt Deeply Sinister

Professor of Criminology, Kristian Lasslett, digs into the proposed ban on Facebook in PNG. He asks whether the Communications Minister is engaged in a deeply hypocritical move, given his own virulent use of the platform prior to abandoning the opposition benches. Communications Minister Sam Basil has proposed a month ban on Facebook, while his Department audits the social media platform...

The Yama Files Part III: When Clever Lawyering Backfires

The Yama Files Part II: The Midnight Contract

The Yama Files Part I: Sue the State and Sue Big!

CEPA spending big on hire cars

In October 2017, PNGi revealed the Konebada Petroleum Park Authority was spending massive amounts of money on car hire, K2.8 million in 2016 alone. Now PNGi has been given evidence that a similar disease is afflicting the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority. CEPA, it seems, spent over K1 million on hire cars in 2017, and most of that money went...

China and Australia encouraged to pork barrel in Prime Minister’s backyard

China and Australia are being courted by the Papua New Guinea government to provide hundreds of millions of kina to finance the construction of the controversial Western Pacific University at Ialibu, in the Prime Minister’s own electorate, in the Southern Highlands. Both Chinese and Australian officials have visited the proposed site and expressed their interest in assisting, according to Higher...

Petition to investigate outlaw organisation and its management

PNGi has just concluded a three part expose on the National Housing Corporation, focusing on a period when the corporation was led by John Dege. Following a call to the public, PNGi collected 292 signatures calling on the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate to investigate John Dege and the NHC. Included among the signatories were victims of NHC illegal actions....

Taking from the poor to feed the rich: NHC and John Dege (Part III)

Taking from the poor to feed the rich: NHC and John Dege (Part II)

Taking from the poor to feed the rich: NHC and John Dege (Part I)

Men of faith and education use charity to steal K7 million

PNGi has been profiling convicts reported to be roaming free in the Leave of Absence scandal rocking the nation’s prison system. Today we document the crimes of disgraced Western Province Governor, Ati Wobiro, and his co-conspirators, who used a charitable vehicle to steal K7 million from the long suffering people of Western Province. The moral of the tale is that...

Trade Union Congress ‘Dysfunctional’, Court Claims

One of the strongest weapons the public has against corruption is organised labour. It is the hard graft of PNG’s workers that keeps the wheels of commerce and industry turning. A unionised workforce, with a strong democratic culture at the rank-and-file level, with principled leadership, could harness the power of labour to challenge corrupt officials in the workplace, and to...

The Australian dream team, that wasn’t

It is a common tale. The national government announces a big ticket joint venture, then bedazzles the public with a slew of Australian executives, who we are told are business leaders, coming in with their sleeves rolled up to develop Papua New Guinea using world class standards. It is a technique steeped in over a century of history. On the...

Kumul Minerals: Rewarding Failure?

Historically state enterprises have been a vital method through which former colonies, suffering from a century or more of exploitation by foreign powers, can concentrate capital under the supportive wing of government power, in order to grow the economy – creating employment, services, goods, and taxation revenues. In PNG they have been used instead as vehicles to plunder the national...

Pascoe Kase: In charge of a national tragedy

Papua New Guinea’s Health Secretary, Pascoe Kase is the man at the helm of a health system that is in crisis and a human tragedy of epic proportions. Regular shortages of medicines and other medical supplies have created a dire situation in rural areas according to UNICEF. In January it was was reported* pregnant mothers in Lae were having to...

Stealing the Public Wealth: Ghost Contracts

Anyone who has witnessed recurrent budget expenditure at a provincial or indeed national level, knows, that like a sieve, it has many holes which money falls through improperly to the benefit of public officials, politicians and their business allies. When an administration spends large sums on car hire for example – given there is no tangible deliverable – these deals...

Whistleblower dumped by oil and gas industry

John Akar is a dogged whistleblower from Angoram in East Sepik Province. He twice exposed systematic breaches of immigration and labour laws by foreign companies working in Papua New Guinea’s booming oil and gas industry. Akar claims his career has been ruined as a result. John Akar before he was made redundant by HAES Two Oil Search contractors, High Arctic...

Serious questions over Collingwood Bay logging

There are many more questions than answers over a controversial logging project at Collingwood Bay in Northern Province. The logging company, Northern Forest Products Limited, started operations in 2017 and currently has some 5,300 cubic metres of logs stockpiled at Wanigela awaiting export to China, according to its export permit application. Northern Forest Products Limited says the logging operation has...

Prisoner Release Scandal Requires Public Inquiry

The Courts have exposed the potential abuse of ‘leave of absence’ (LOA) orders by prison management, which is allowing some of the country’s worst criminals to walk free. This is an explosive issues. Many of the white-collar criminals locked up in the prison estate made a career from bribing public officials to get unfair privileges. There is a significant risk,...

Medical kit distribution highlights failure to reform

The government’s announcement of four new medical kit distribution contracts highlights again the failure to reform a system that has been repeatedly exposed as ineffective and inefficient. As recently as November last year a government audit recommended that the awarding of distribution contracts should be outsourced to the Provinces so they could make their own local arrangements and effectively monitor...

The Wartoto crime spree remembered

Over a number of years the state’s coffers were looted by Eremas Wartoto, with help from senior politicians and public officials. The money fuelled a jet-setting lifestyle, luxury properties in Australia, and Wartoto’s numerous businesses, at home and abroad. The National Alliance stalwart was sentenced to 10 years prison with hard labour for his crimes. Bomana Jail Commander Haraha Kiddy...

LD Logistics

‘PNG’s population depend heavily on medical supplies provided by the government. Almost 99% of them access the health care services provided by the government and cannot even afford to seek alternate paid services from private clinics. This demonstrates how critical the health services funded by the government mean to its entire population. In other words, the government cannot afford to...

John Pundari

Last year, 2017, John Pundari celebrated three significant milestones: his fiftieth birthday; twenty-five years since his first election to Parliament; and five years as Minister for the Environment, Conservation and Climate Change. In this Profile, PNGi examines his career as both a politician and a businessman. John Thomas Pundari was born on the 7th of January 1967. He first entered...