Links
PNG Diving
The following is sample of some of the web sites dealing with diving in PNG.
It is not a complete list and if you would like your organisation mentioned
in this newsletter please let me know.
PNG Religious Sites
The Free Dictionary
The Free Dictionary has a link about PNG located at -- http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Papua
New Guinea
News Items
Wabag - Enga Province
Thanks to the Rotary clubs in Australia the Wabag General Hospital in Enga
Province have received paraplegic beds, wheelchairs, physiotherapy equipment,
mattresses, labour ward mattresses, bed sheets, operating gowns, drugs, blankets,
bedcovers and pillow cases for the hospital. The Wabag Secondary School and
the Kopen Secondary School will divide 55 boxes of library books between themselves
also thanks to the Rotarians.
Government Grace Period
The motion to extend the grace period of votes of no confidence in governments
from 18 months to 36 months has been defeated for the second time in Parliament.
The Opposition Leader, Sir Mekere Morauta, has filed court papers to bar another
attempt to re-introduce the failed amendment. Sir Mekere has named acting
Speaker Jeffery Nape and the State as defendants in the case. He is asking
the courts to declare that the Government's failure to muster the numbers
for the third and final reading of the amendment means the vote has lapsed
and should not be entertained again
The sacked Deputy Prime Minister Andrew Baing has recently referred five
People's Progress Party Members of Parliament, including Justice Minister
Mark Maipakai to the Ombudsman Commission for voting against his party resolution
to not support the vote to increase the ruling governments grace period from
18 months to 36 months. The five, including Trade and Industry Minister Paul
Tiensten, Rabaul MP Dr Allan Marat, Imbonggu MP Timothy Tala and Koroba-Lake
Kopiago MP Petrus Thomas voted with the Government for the amendment. This
was against the party's resolution to oppose the Bill.
Overseas Employment
Lady Carol Kidu, the Minister for Social Welfare and Development has said
that the export of PNG labour overseas to pick fruit should not be seen as
slave labour. She said that agriculture is a base for most PNG people. The
work should be seen as helping to supplement a shortage of fruit-picking labour
in Australia. It is hoped that this proposal would also help to cut down on
the number of unemployed people in PNG.
Rouna Shutdown
The national capital district was recently facing frequent power blackouts
due to power shedding at the Moitaka and Kanudi stations because Koiari landowners
demanding land compensation shut down the Rouna station. The Rouna station
supplies about 40 per cent of the total power supply for the city of Port
Moresby. The Rouna landowners went to the power station, overpowered the security
guards and ordered the workers to shut down the power station.
Panakawa Veneer Factory
Claims that the Panakawa Veneer factory has become a place where managers
forced workers into having sex with them has been denied by the Malaysian
owner. The owner admitted that one of its senior officers - from Tufi, Oro
Province - had appeared in court for having sex at the campsite. The denial
has come after the MP for Ijivitari, Cecilking Doruba, claimed in Parliament
recently that managers of the logging company were "having forced sex"
with female employees of the company at the Panakawa factory in Western Province
and asked the Minister for Forest Patrick Pruaitch to investigate.
Goroka University
The head of the University of Goroka is dismayed by the slice of the budget that was handed to it by the government for the year 2004. The dormitories at the university are run down and need maintenance and the sewerage facilities are virtually non-existent at the uni. The university head is afraid that they will not have enough money to pay staff next year let alone fix some of the major problems.
Real Estate Agents
Vanilla Industry
The new Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Moses Maladina has
told Parliament that the lucrative vanilla industry needed to be regulated.
Vanilla is an important crop for PNG but it was subject to the effect of world
commodity prices. He has advised villagers farming vanilla to diversify and
not just rely on vanilla as the only crop. Mr Maladina said the vanilla industry
was not regulated in PNG because it was a new crop but the government was
thinking of putting some control in place.
UPNG Security
Security at the University if PNG has been beefed up with the training of
25 guards in the art of handling a guard dog over a two-week course.. Among
the 25 trained three of the trainees were women. The dogs used by the University
are Rottweilers, Dobermans and timber shepherds. The dogs will be used to
protect students and make the campus a harmonious and peaceful study environment.
Governor General Elections
Three people were nominated for the position of Governor General. They were
Sir Paulias Matane, Sir Albert Kipalan and Sir Pato Kakaraya. - The battle
of the Knights! The original election, of Sir Albert Kipalan, was declared
null and void by the courts as Parliament dit not follow the correct procedures.
This fresh election was not without controversy when the speaker ruled that
the election should be held on regional grounds and eliminated one of the
contenders because he was not from the "correct" region. The winner
was Sir Pato Kakaraya from Enga Province.
Japanese Tourists
It has been estimated that Air Niugini brings in approximately 5000 Japanese
tourists each year. This is only 5000 out of an estimated 19 million outbound
passengers from Japan every year. It has been estimated that about K20 million
of this is spent with the various tourist operators in the country. That is
- each tourist spends about K4000 each whilst they are in the country. Overall
the Japanese tourists are estimated to contribute over K32 million to the
economy of PNG - all this from only one flight a week. About 4000 genuine
tourists from Australia visit PNG each year and it is estimated that they
contribute K15 million to the PNG economy.
Japanese Language
There are not many schools around PNG teaching the Japanese language. The
only school in the West Sepik Province to do this is the Saint Ignatius Secondary
School in Aitape. The Japanese government has donated K3000 worth of materials
to the school. The language course is optional for students attending Grade
11 and 12 at the school.
Tok Pisin Language
Here is an article on - "Tok Pisin" - The National Language of
Papua New Guinea --
http://www.siu.edu/departments/cola/ling/reports/Etepa/
-- Prepared and written by Edward Etepa
Here is a paragraph from the article.
The historical beginning of Tok Pisin can be traced in the early 18th century,
however, it does not appear fully formed until mid 1885. Its genesis was the
result of a gradually stabilizing and expanding contact language which went
through the following stages of development: jargon stage, to stable pidgin,
expanded pidgin, followed by creolization on the notion of the pidgin/creole
life cycle. The history of Tok Pisin is complex, recent research by numerous
pidgin/creole linguists have shown that it would be an oversimplification
of the situation to suggest that Tok Pisin represents a direct linear descendant
of Pacific Jargon English which developed in several varieties in various
parts of the South Pacific before the middle of the 19th century as a result
of contacts between Europeans and South Sea islanders.
Jimmy Harlindong, who looks after various websites about Papua New Guinea,
has announced that he has readied his Pidgin / English / Motu dictionary website
located at http://www.pngbd.com/dictionary.php
to a stage where it can be used. It allows the user to lookup the meaning
of words in all directions. Of course, like any web site, it will never be
finished so if you have some words to add or alterations that need to be done
then let me know and I will pass them on to Jimmy.
PNG Business Directory
The lady behind the PNG Business and Tourism Directory, Gail Thomas, has
had a good write up in the Post Courier recently. Her website, designed by
Jimmy Harlindong, has been reported as having over 2 million hits for the
month of November. Hits do not mean much but the article also mentioned that
there were approximately 64,000 visitors for the month or over 2000 visitors
a day. This web site is highly recommended and those figures back up my sentiments
about the site as I think it would be the PNG web site with the largest number
of visitors. -- http://www.pngbd.com
Australian Rugby League
It has been reported that two Australian Rugby League teams will play in
PNG the year 2005. The teams may play against each other or against a PNG-select
side to be known as the PNG Prime Ministers XIII. This is part of a proposed
foundation called the Marcus Bai Foundation to foster Rugby League in PNG
and hopefully produce plays of the same calibre as Marcus. It is proposed
that the two Australian teams will alternate each year if the PM's XIII eventuates.
Datec
Datec PNG have finally, officially, opened their 2 year old building. Or
maybe it was just an excuse to have an extra big Christmas party for 500 of
their major customers? Datec also launched their new "Thing big"
advertising campaign.
ANZ Bank Port Moresby
The ANZ Bank in downtown Port Moresby has introduced a sophisticated numbering
system to help serve customers faster. Some customers were not happy recently
when the numbering machine ran out of paper and it appeared that the tellers
did not remember how to serve waiting customers until the machine once again
had paper in it. Many customers left the bank very disgruntled over the incident.
Westpac Bank
Customers of the Westpac Bank in PNG will soon be able to use their bankcards
in all Automatic Teller machines (ATM) owned by other banks. This follows
on from the announcement that the Westpac Bank was considering a full extension
of electronic interchange with its soon to be released ATM network.
Value Added Tax
The PNG Parliament has voted to abolish the Value Added Tax (VAT) and replace
it with a Goods and Services Tax (GST). The Supreme Court declared VAT unconstitutional
last year after a challenge by the Governor of Morobe Province Luther Wenge.
VAT was introduced in 1999 to replace provincial sales tax.
School Subsidies
The schools in the national capital have received the school subsidies for
the final quarter of the year. A cheque for K239,000 was presented to the
National Capital District assistant education secretary by the chairman of
the NCDC board for the 95 schools in the National Capital District.
Church Agreement
The Anglican, Catholic and Lutheran Churches in PNG have signed an historic
agreement to recognise the validity of each others baptism. The signing of
the agreement also means that the three churches recognised the apostolic
roots of their common Christian faith. The signing does not, however, mean
that there will be any merger of the churches. The agreement was signed by
the Anglican Archbishop James Ayong, Bishop Kiage Motoro of the Lutheran Church
and Bishop John Ribot from the Catholic Church.
Igam Barracks
The PNG Defence Force barracks at Igam (Lae) have been without water for
over two weeks. The barracks normally draws its water supply from wells separate
to the water sourced for the rest of Lae city but the generator to power the
water pumps has failed. The residents of the barracks have had to ration water
and a water cart is providing some relief. The Igam Primary School also uses
the water so there have been problems with the school as well. It is hoped
that the pump has now been fixed.
Gobe Landowners
The Gobe Field Engineering company handed over a windfall of K200,000 in
management fees to local landowners just in time for Christmas. Eight clans
jointly own the company. The management fees paid to the landowners was from
the profits of Engineering company.
Defence Force
The PNG Defence Force has managed to save K5 million from its budget this
year. The savings have come from various reforms made this year. The force
has been allocated almost K80 million in the 2004 budget.
Davara Hotel
The Ela Beach Hotel, formerly the Davara, is up for sale by Tender. The hotel
is currently owned by the same chain that owns the Crowne Plaza (POM Travelodge
/ Parkroyal) and the Holiday Inn (Islander). The chain has decided it would
cost too much for them to bring the hotel up to a standard acceptable to the
chain. The Ela Beach has 47 rooms which includes serviced apartments.
AIDS Campaign
The National AIDS Council has recently launched the third National HIV/AIDS
prevention campaign. The campaign has been designed to highlight the risks
of people having more than one sex partner. It is hoped that the new campaign
will promote discussion on HIV/AIDS. It also hopes to remove some of the stigma
that is currently perceived as being attached to someone with HIV or AIDS.
Chinese Grant
China has given PNG a grant of K9 million. Some of the money will be used
to renovate Government House. It will also be used for economic and technical
co-operation projects such as the reconstruction of the mathematics and computer
science building at the University of Technology in Lae and infrastructure
for the Vudal University in Rabaul.
2004 International School Fees
Port Moresby High School has advertised the school fees for Grades 7 - 12
for the PNG syllabus for next year. PNG Grades 9 and 10 K5250 and PNG Grade
11 and 12 K5800. The fee for international curriculum is not known at this
stage. The International Education Agency Schools in Lae have advertised a
price of K2,240 for each term next year.
PNG Media
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Articles for this Newsletter
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