THE Opposition Leader Don Polye yesterday called on the Prime Minister Peter O’Neill not to cover up his government’s negligence over the major landslip at Guo village in Chimbu. Mr Polye said Mr O’Neill should instead admit that due to the country’s cash flow crisis, the government did not intervene swiftly to remove debris blocking the road. He also called on Mr O’Neill to respect the much-needed contributions and efforts by the business sector in helping open the highway for the public, something which his government gave blind eye to. “Him talking down their contribution adds more stress to what he has already inflicted on them -depletion of foreign reserve due to his government’s economic mismanagement,” he said. “This is the truth. Where was the Prime Minister when similar instances of massive landslides occurred along the Highlands Highway in the recent past.” On Mr O’Neill’s announcement for a tougher law on people blocking highways Mr Polye said he should firstly pass bills like the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and Whistle blowers Act which had been pending for more than two years. He blasted O’Neill for bringing such a law at the last minute, given that the general election was looming. Mr Polye visited the Guo village landslide site last Friday committing to put in K3 billion for maintenance of the country’s highways when in government. PORT MORESBY: Opposition Leader Don Polye says he is very concerned with the preparations for the 2017 General Elections. There are four reasons to justify my concern and they are as follows: 1. I do not know whether the current progress on the common role update will be absolutely ready as the National Elections is only three months away. Because the law strictly stipulates that Common Roll update must be in its final state of prepared form three months before the election. In that way three months is given to the parties, voters and the citizens to scrutinise whether all their names are in the Common Roll or those fake ones can be deleted. If there are some errors or discrepancies, two to three months period is a good time within which the correction can be done so that the spirit of the law is in order that Common Roll update is done or final in less than three months. At the moment what the Electoral Commissioner Mr Patillias Gamato is doing is such that he will achieve that legal requirement. The Common Roll update is progressing very slowly and we believe that there is a lot of rigging taking place especially by those MPs in the PNC government or candidates aligned to the ruling party. They have started the rigging process by putting in names that are not true or deleting names of those that are not their supporters. I call on Mr Gamato to be transparent, responsible and effective in doing the updating; 2. I have a very serious concern. It is a concern of the people of PNG as to the printing of ballot papers. I have checked it with the Government Printing office. I have written letters to them. I am yet to receive their response that the government printing office to do the printing for all the ballot papers. I have reliable information that the ballot papers will be printed overseas. I have an indication that it will take place in Indonesia. This is for the first time since Independence will we see ballot papers which are very important legal documents printed outside of the country with no good reason. There is no justified reason for Mr Patillus Gamato and the government to do the printing of the ballot papers outside of the country. I am very concerned. I argue, criticise and condemn this act of printing legal papers overseas when we have capability in the country. Since independence, the government printing office has been printing all the ballot papers. They have done an excellent job comparatively and competently. Why all of a sudden printing the ballot papers outside of the country? There is no economical, legal or any good justified reason to support what the government is instructing Mr Gamato to do. The only reason why Patillus Gamato intends to print ballot papers outside of the country is he is facilitating PNC government under Peter O’Neill to rig election by producing duplicated ballot papers that they will be sending in for whoever they want them to win because our people will be voting out PNC candidates. This action is done only to support PNC candidates. They will be voted out through the normal, democratic and fair process of election. PNC candidates will be rejected by the people. This is why Peter O’Neill has resorted to abusing and manipulating Mr Gamato to produce ballot papers overseas. I condemn it. I also ask the people of this nation and the candidates to stand up against this corrupt act by the Electoral Commissioner. I ask the Electoral Commissioner Patillus Gamato to refrain from what he is doing. It is evil, illegal and wrong. He is destroying the normal, fair, transparent and democratic process and work of the Electoral Commission that we have credibility and integrity in it. He is taking the commission into a lot of disrepute and questions; 3. We know there will legislative changes in the next session of Parliament. I call on the Electoral Commission and the government not to manipulate the electoral process. They will manipulate the Parliament to increase the nomination fee from K1000 to K10,000 and under the same law they will reduce the election period from eight weeks to four weeks. This is a direct attack on democracy. It infringes on the democracy and constitutional rights of those seeking to contest for public offices. Their intention has a mission. Their mission is to drive this legislative change in the next sitting of Parliament to making sure PNC members come back home through electoral fraud or a rigged election process by putting in a corrupt law and make their candidates easily win back their seats so I call on the people of PNG to stand up against this. I call on Patillias Gamato to be responsible. Him asking me the Leader of the Opposition to mobilise numbers to vote out that legislative bill is not good enough. That is my job as a legislator. He does not have to come and teach me how to do my job. He has to do his own job. He is not supposed to be listening to the government. He should be doing his job independently. He should not bow down to any politician like the Prime Minister or the Cabinet as he is a constitutional office holder. He should be bold and decisive. For instance, he should have said the nomination fee is K1000 and the Issue of Writ is on April 20 and the campaign period will be eight weeks. This is the announcement that he should be making. He should not be playing politics by telling me to mobilise numbers to stop the bill from being passed. He has come to politics already. I ask him not to be seen as an incompetent officer. He must do his job. The way he is speaking is he sounds like Peter O’Neill. He sounds exactly like Peter O’Neill. He has told me to mobilise numbers. That is what Peter O’Neill always tells me to. He knows that he has numbers on his side so he tells me to mobilise numbers and stop it. It is not about mobilising numbers. It is about what he is doing is right or wrong. Is the Electoral Commissioner discharging his duties as a constitutional office holder of the State by the authority of the Constitution? Is he compromising himself by degrading the office he is in charge of by subjugating himself to political influence under a corrupt Prime Minister? These are the questions which Mr Gamato should digest into his conscience and as much as he can, he must uphold the constitutionality and independence of the Electoral Commission and; 4. Submission of Form 29 by intending candidates is illegal because it is illegally done ahead of Issue of Writs. Those forms should be filled in after the Issue of Writs. Writs are issued and candidates are nominating themselves. This is what they should be doing. Them doing now is illegal. They should not go there to fill in their bio-data unless Writs are issued. What is happening now is the Electoral Commission will extract the information of potential nominees and make it available to Peter O’Neill so that he will lure all these candidates with money. They will go around sabotaging other candidates and their parties. So what the Electoral Commission is doing is it is corrupting the normal, democratic system of election. This is not fair. Him getting nominations ahead is illegal. He supposed to be getting that after the nomination but he getting it before the Issue of Writs. He is doing it to feed Peter O’Neill with information of candidates. That is wrong. He is plotting to sabotage other parties and their candidates to ensure PNC wins majority of the seats. This is not democratic. It is a Dictatorship and Communism. He is abusing this office. This is a beginning of rigging the election. PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill has been officiating on projects across the country, which were solely the work of the Somare Government, Opposition leader Don Polye said yesterday. “So much has been said about the development projects countrywide during their openings in the public forums, including the mainstream media, but the fact on who were responsible for all these remains misleading,” he said when speaking at a media conference yesterday. He said on record, the upgrading of impact projects like the Jackson International, Hoskins, Kagamuga, Gurney and Tokua airports among others, was funded by the previous government through the Asian Development Bank. Polye said the previous government was also funding the other major transport infrastructure developments, particularly the regional wharves and highways. “The only projects the current government funded are in National Capital District alone under the pretext of international events,” Polye claimed. He said the credit should be given where it was due. He thanked Civil Aviation Minister Steven Davis for clarifying that he (Polye) was the man responsible for the projects. He said the projects derived from the past government’s export-driven strategy which set the economic foundation of the country. “He (O’Neill) is yet to implement his own development programmes as he has been running the country haphazardly,” a Polye said. He said the O’Neill Government was good at spending and not at making money. “Most of the projects especially in the nation’s capital are not economically justifiable. “Unequal distribution of resources and wealth has taken precedence over the expense of those provinces that contribute enormously to the Government’s revenue basket,” he said. Polye said he doubted that the so-called infrastructure developments in the nation’s capital would add economic value to the country’s economic growth. He described the current development strategy undertaken by the Government as one-sided and unbalanced. “We are not on track. The challenges to improve the livelihood of our people are still outstanding,” Polye said. “Our global development indexes have been worsened and yet no effort has been exerted by the Government to arrest them.” Polye cited that PNG’s global corruption index was among the worst. He queried whether the future of the country was on track when the development challenges still remained unaddressed. The National THE O'NEILL-DION GOVERNMENT IS A SOVEREIGN RISK TO THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA.5/2/2013 QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"The Opposition will not support the No-confidence motion grace period bill from 18 months to 30 months during the second and third reading in parliament." Opposition Leader Hon. Belden Namah WE ARE CONCERNED WITH THE LACK OF TRANSPARENCY AND GOOD GOVERNANCE IN THE O’NEILL- DION GOVERNMENT.
WE ARE EQUALLY CONCERNED WITH THIS GOVT’S MISMANAGEMENT OF THIS COUNTRY, THROUGH ACTIONS AND INACTIONS THAT ARE OF GRAVE CONCERN MYSTERIOUS JET: THE STORIES OF ALL THOSE INVOLED DO NOT ADD UP, SO IS BLACK MONEY OR SOMETHING VALUABLE INVOLVED? THE OPPOSITION IS CONVINCED THAT THERE IS MORE TO IT, HENCE THE OPPOSITION WILL NOT REST UNTILL IT GET’S TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SAGA -ALL RELEVANT AIRPORT SERVICES AT JACKSONS AIRPORT; CUSTOMS,IMMIGRATION, CAA (ESPECIALLY THE CONTROL TOWER) HAD NO IDEA THE PLANE WAS ON HIS WAY TO PNG -PLANE’S ROUTE AND STOP OVER AT TROUBLE HOT SPOTS AND TAX HAVENS IS OF CONCERN |
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