By Nancy Sullivan*

The Kananam Meeting on the proposed Pacific Marine Industrial Zone was called for this Friday because a spate of important government officials claimed to have never received their invitations to the first Rempi Forum.

NGOs in Papua New Guinea have published two full-page advertisements in this weeks tok pisin language Wantok newspaper criticizing the government over its alienation of more than 5 million hectares of customary land.

Landowners from Madang have secured a significant and important victory in their opposition to the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone which is being built on their land by the government with money borrowed from China.

The government says the PMIZ will be Papua New Guinea's first Special Economic Zone, under new laws being written for PNG by the World Bank. The government says the PMIZ will provide a hub for tuna processing in the region and around 30,000 factory jobs.

By Patrick Seleng 

The opposition has sought the Supreme court's interpretation on the number of sitting days after the speaker gagged the Parliament. About 1 year ago I wrote that the opposition's attempt to take this matter to Supreme court was a waste of time and money as Somare has outsmarted and outwitted Mekere and his opposition team. Up to now, there is no mention of this in the mainstream media, infact, this matter is given the hugest hiding. 

Lands and Physical Planning Minister, Lucas Dekena, has confirmed the government has handed out 99-year leases covering more than than 5 million hectares of customary land and revealed that the government intends to double the number of leases so they cover 20% of Papua New Guinea's land mass.

The Minister has rejected the widespread criticism of the Special Agriculture Business Leases (SABL) and said the state had no choice as it wanted to free up land for development because more than 95% of the land was owned by the customary landowners.


By Reginald Renagi

I invite the public to take time to read a series of interesting articles by a Port Moresby Street blogger, Martyn Narmorang in the popular Keith Jackson blog: PNG ATTITUDE. 

Here Martyn is very perceptive and  raises many real-life daily issues that confronts Papua New Guineans on the streets. I would like to just address a few aspects of what our young neotribalist talks about.

By Reginald Renagi

PNG has had a leadership crisis for some time now.

Today, the only way for our government to salvage its battered public image and credibility is start strengthening its leadership capacity, and governance performance standards.

A big change in leadership now will bring greater confidence to citizens and investors in the way we govern ourselves.

Due to what has recently transpired today, there are only a handful of capable leaders to take over from PM Somare at this juncture.

By Reginald Renagi *

Papua New Guinea is a failing state.  There, I’ve said it to get your attention.  I hope I did.

Because the leaders we trusted since Independence have all failed us like the state institutions they are now running into the ground.

So unless those who have the power and opportunity to do something for PNG themselves actually now find some motivation, it may soon be too late to get the ‘ship of state’ back on track.