New Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) figures, released on 11 February 2025 by Transparency International, highlight Papua New Guinea’s failure to deal with widespread corruption.
Papua New Guinea’s rating as highly corrupt in the latest global assessment published by Transparency International reflects the complete failure to tackle widespread forest crime says community advocacy group ACT NOW!
Transparency International recently released its 2024 Corruption Perception Index which reveals PNG is still languishing in 127th place out of 180 countries with a CPI score of just 31 out of 100, the worst in the Pacific region.
ACT NOW Campaign Manager Eddie Tanago has been charged by police under the Cybercrime Code Act for allegedly publishing defamatory remarks on social media about the Managing Director of the PNG Forest Authority.
Mr Tanago’s arrest came after a complaint from the PNGFA that ACT NOW had shared a social media post published by a radio company advertising a talkback show that was to feature the Forest Authority and which included an image of the MD, allegedly without his consent.
A concerning analysis by community advocacy group ACT NOW has revealed that almost all District Development Authorities (DDAs) in Papua New Guinea are failing to make crucial contact information available, hindering governance, accountability, and service delivery.
Despite each District receiving K20 million annually for service and infrastructure improvements, as of July 2024, the analysis reveals most DDA’s do not have a named Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and lack an email address, postal address and phone number or website.
Civil society organisations and community representatives have gathered in Port Moresby to demand government action on the widespread abuse of Forest Clearing Authorities (FCA).
Prime Minister James Marape has spoken of the importance of preserving Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforest in a meeting with the United Nations General Secretary and in his address to the UN General Assembly last Friday
Yet, community advocacy group ACT NOW says his government is doing nothing to stop widespread illegal logging and in particular the abuse of agricultural clearing licences.
While the government has been dramatically increasing the amount of funding pumped directly into each District, there is an appalling lack of transparency about how those public funds are being used.
As of July 2024, analysis of media reporting by community advocacy group ACT NOW reveals just 24 out of 96 Districts have lodged their financial acquittals for 2022 or 2023 and none of those acquittals are publicly available. This is despite each District now being given K20 million a year in service and infrastructure improvement grants.
Community advocacy group ACT NOW! says a new logging operation in Milne Bay Province could be yet another example of a bogus agriculture project being used as cover for a large-scale forest grab.
The new logging operation began on Sideia Island earlier this year as part of the Loani Bwanabwana Integrated Agro-Forestry Project.
Operated by a Malaysian logging company with no previous agriculture experience, the project is promising 36,700 hectares of new agriculture planting, including balsa, cocoa, vanilla and rice.
A lack of proper planning at the District level is a critical failure that is undermining the delivery of quality health and education services across Papua New Guinea.
Research by community advocacy organization ACT NOW has revealed that two-years on from the last national election, just one quarter or 25% of Districts have published a five-year development plan for 2023-27.
“Good planning is essential for the delivery of quality services,” says ACT NOW Information Coordinator Cathy Tukne.
The Marape Government is not on track to meet it’s log export reduction goals as outlined in the Medium Term Development Plan IV.
In 2022, the Government announced a ban on all round log exports in the next 3 to 5 years, with the intention to increase local downstream processing to promote greater employment, increase GDP and boost government revenues.
The log export data shows an export of 2.2million cubic meters in 2023.
This is well over the full year target set in the MTDP IV of 1.695 million cubic meters.