By Sam Basil MP

The Leadership Tribunal decision in the Hagoria case upheld the legal position that all electoral funds (in that case, the District Support Grant) should be paid into the District Treasuries and NOT to any individual MPs. DSG and the District Support Improvement Program (DSIP) funds are required under Section 95A of the Organic Law on Provincial and Local-Level Governments to be paid directly to the District Treasuries.

The Department of Conservation in Papua New Guinea has received legal advice that any carbon trading schemes, including the government's own model carbon projects, are unlawful.

The legal advice states there is no legal basis for the governments model carbon trading projects in Kamula Doso and April Salume and both projects are "legally untenable".

Papua New Guinea--one of the few countries in the world where women's life expectancy is lower than men's--ratified a major United Nations women's rights treaty in 1995, but then proceeded to miss four deadlines for reporting on its compliance with key provisions.

By Sam Basil MP

The National Parliament Speaker Hon. Jeffery Nape has eroded the spirit of democracy for three consecutive years as the Speaker of this eighth Parliament and continues to do.

When I became a Member of Parliament I was given a copy of the Constitution (the edited version July, 2007). When I started browsing through the Speakers role and responsibilities I started to realise his unprofessional and undemocratic conduct.

By Nuahiva

ON JANUARY 21 this year the Minimum Wages Board declared that the minimum wage rate was to be increased from K1.72  to K2.29 per hour. 

Weeks later RD Tuna tried to seek an exemption from that wage rate. The fishing and canning company wrote to the government  seeking recognition as an agriculture company just so it would avoid paying Papua New Guineans the minimum wage determined by Papua New Guinea government regulations.  

By Countryside 

There is an old Jewish saying;  a poor man looks out the window of his house and see the birds, green meadows, clear streams and breathes the fresh air from his cabin.  A rich man however paints the whole world silver so all he sees is the reflection of him. 

By Countryside

By Paul Oates

Having just returned from the original birth place of democracy, in the light of a fellow commentator’s postulations, it seemed appropriate to reflect on whether true democracy does or did ever exit in PNG. So firstly, what is democracy? 

All parliamentarians who have been referred by the Ombudsman Commission for failure to submit their annual returns must have all their overseas bank accounts frozen including those of their immediate relatives pending the outcome of the tribunals, says Bulolo MP Sam Basil.