More than Half of PNG Parliamentarians jet on lavish ride for a Rugby League Match in Australia

#StopCorruptioninPNG 
​About 72 politicians and department heads visited Brisbane, Australia last weekend for the Prime Minister’s XIII rugby league match.
The entourage was joined by Prime Minister James Marape and included 13 CEOs, heads of departments and is estimated to have cost over K3 million in airfares, transportation, hotel accommodation, tickets to Suncorp Stadium, allowances and incidentals.
While Papua New Guinean’s watched the game live on TV back home, they were seen lapping it up at the Suncorp Stadium where the PNG team was thrashed by the Australians.

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PNG and Australia PMs with jerseys (ABC Photo)

In a country where corruption is a serious development roadblock and money is scarce for schools and medicines and where the maternal mortality rate is extremely high, the funded trip is likely to draw the ire of voters from all quarters of the country.
At a time when the election of those travellers (see separate front page story) are being questioned in the PNG Court of disputed returns, the fact that that nearly half of the PNG Parliament was in Australia for a rugby league match would be scandalous to say the least.
Most of the leaders, about 52 MPs, the rest CEOs and HoDs that travelled were new MPs including several Ministers.
The Post-Courier has been reliably informed that most MPs and CEOs left on Thursday on Air Niugini and the rest on Friday and Saturday through both Qantas and Air Niugini.
The Post-Courier has a list of the MPs and CEOs that travelled, many on business class, executive club members and economy.
The paper also has pictures of many of the leaders that went over to watch the game.
All the leaders were seated in corporate boxes to watch the matches while Papua New Guineans back home crowed around radios and small TV stands in outback villages, towns and city settlements to follow the match.
About 28 business class seats on these three days were occupied at a cost of – Business class – K4212.70 one way cheapest and K6468.70 one way (normal) compared to Thursday where the normal fare is K3212.50 one way, special of K2882.50 one way, the lowest K1542.50 one way limited to only frequent flyers.
The hotel (named) where the leaders stayed also could not fully comment on the questions sent, but the paper was reliably told by the named hotel that 62 rooms were booked by the PNG delegation.
They advised one room was charged A$480 and A$600 respectively one night.
Prime Minister’s XIII, or sometimes informally referred to as the PM’s XIII, is the name of a representative rugby league team, comprising Australian players from National Rugby League clubs that did not qualify for the NRL Finals, or whose teams were knocked out during the first three weeks of the finals.
The PM’s XIII is a celebrity exhibition match between Australian and PNG rugby league teams where the Prime Ministers of both country’s are the main guests.
While Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese turned up for the game himself, PNG’s James Marape lined up for the kickoff with almost the second PM’s XIII team, drawing an Australian journalist to remark about the absurdity of the situation.
Most of the delegation arrived back on Monday, yesterday and some are coming in today.

Source : Post Courier /CorruptionWatchPNG

Next : PNG ​Prime Minister Marape Won In PNG's Failed Election

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