PAPUA New Guinea loses about 50% of its budget directly to fraud.

“This is equivalent to K4 billion a year which has gone into the hands of corrupt public servants and senior bureaucrats, many of whom have invested these gains overseas,” acting deputy police commissioner Fred Yakasa said this week at a workshop in Port Moresby.

With the International Finance Corporation (IFC) proudly trumpeting its expansion in Papua New Guinea we should all be aware of its true mission on behalf of the global elite and the world's richest corporations and nations.

Papua New Guinea is already beginning to suffer from the new neo-colonial landgrab with 5 million hectares having being seized in Special Agricuture Business Leases, and the IFC is in the thick of this global phenomena, as the article below by Ava Danlog explains.

By Esther Saoub (gb/dpa/AFP)

In Papua New Guinea we are only too aware of the social and environmental problems that foreign owned mining companies can cause. Ok Tedi, Panguna, Porgera, Tolukuma, Misima and now Hidden Valley have all come with an enormous cost that is paid by local people while the mining company and their shareholders earn massive profits. How can mining companies be made more responsible when they operate in countries like Papua New Guinea?

From The National

10 February, 2011

Community based campaign group ACT NOW!, is calling on Minister for the Environment Benny Allen to investigate claims of serious financial mismanagement and misuse of trust funds in his Department.

By a Special Correspondent

What more does Somare and his evil and corrupt Government have to do you to make you stand up and demand change?

The Constitution (the Mother Law) has been ignored, broken, tampered with and treated with contempt. Every other law of the land has been treated with similar; or worse; contempt by the Somare Government.

It has not been a great start to the year in Papua New Guinea - as we review below. But the negative stories about our government, stealing from the public purse and the resource industries only emphasis the importance of making OUR voices heard. If our leaders do not hear from us then the only changes we will see will be negative ones.  

Paralysis in the Land of the Sukudunumi God

By Monday Tanari*