PRIME Minister James Marape, pictured, has warned gun-toting hooligans that “I am coming for you”. “To all who have guns and kill and hide behind the mask of the community, learn from what I will do to criminals who kill innocent people. “I am not afraid to use the strongest measures in law on you. “To Haguai, Okiru and Liwi, plus others in Tari who have been living off killing others, I am coming for you. Last week, I responded to question on death penalty (in) Parliament. It is already a law. “In memory of the innocent who continue to die at the hands of gun-toting criminals, your time is up. “Before I had someone else to report to. Now I have no one else to report to but the innocent you kill.” He posted his comments on his Facebook page following the killing of women and children in Hela on Saturday. “Today (Tuesday, July 8) is one of the saddest days of my life. “Many children and mothers (were) innocently murdered in Munima and Karida villages of my electorate by Haguai, Liwi and Okiru gunmen.” It was reported that a group of men armed with high-powered rifles killed six women at Peta village on Tuesday. An hour later, a second group of men killed two pregnant women, mothers and children and injured four others at Karida village. Marape said since 2012, he had been requesting for more police presence in Hela but police headquarters did not support him. “How can a province of 400,000 people function in policing law and order with under 60 policemen, and the occasional operational military and police that do no more than bandaid maintenance?”
By Angus Grigg, Lisa Murray and Jonathan Shapiro - The Australian Financial Review The middle son of ousted Papua New Guinea prime minister Peter O’Neill is living in a $13 million house on Sydney’s most expensive street as an investigation is set to begin into his father's time in office. Brian O’Neill, who is studying at university, has been living at the house in Wolseley Road, Point Piper since the start of last year. A commission of inquiry into his father's role in the UBS loan affair is due to start within weeks. The property is held in the name of Sir Theophilus Constantinou, a close associate of the former prime minister and one of PNG’s richest men. Sir Theo has never lived at the house and when visiting Sydney stays at the Langham Hotel.
One potential avenue for investigators, to look into the waterside property, comes via the Sydney office of law firm Norton Rose Fulbright and one of its former partners, Vince Baudille, who acted on the house purchase in 2015. Another Norton Rose partner, Anthony Latimer, advised the O’Neill government the previous year on a $1.24 billion loan from investment bank UBS to buy a 10 per cent stake in the ASX-listed Oil Search.
New inquiry
That deal is now the subject of a commission of inquiry in PNG, which has similar powers to a royal commission and is due to be convened within weeks. Mr Latimer and Mr Baudille left Norton Rose at the same time in January last year for the Sydney office of international law firm Bird & Bird. Mr Latimer was the principal adviser to the O’Neill government on the UBS loan, which ultimately turned sour and cost PNG an estimated $420 million after the Pacific nation was forced to sell its stake in Oil Search. The new government in Port Moresby is looking into the circumstances in which Mr O’Neill entered into the loan agreement and those, like Norton Rose, who helped facilitate it.
Kerenga Kua, PNG’s newly sworn-in Petroleum Minister and a former attorney-general, said the role of all those involved in the controversial loan would be examined. The Commission of Inquiry, which was announced by new Prime Minister James Marape late last month, will go beyond an earlier report by the Ombudsman Commission, which could only look into the role played by ministers and senior public servants, broadly defined as “leaders”. “The Commission of Inquiry will now review the conduct of people who were not leaders," Mr Kua said. He said it was misleading for those who fell outside the Ombudsman’s scope to say the report had made no findings against them, as UBS has done. “Everybody who had a role to play will be the subject of scrutiny in this inquiry,” Mr Kua said.
Payments and transactions
The Ombudsman extensively documented the role of UBS in the deal, as it did with Norton Rose and its then partner Mr Latimer. It passed no judgment on the firm’s legal advice or Mr Latimer’s role in the deal, as this fell outside its scope. A Norton Rose spokesman said: "It's not for us to comment on matters related to our clients. As has been reported, there were a number of advisers on this transaction. We acted alongside a PNG law firm, and in accordance with our instructions." He said the firm had not been asked to respond to an inquiry. It is expected the Commission of Inquiry, which is in the process of being set up, will examine payments to advisers.
The Ombudsman found that up to 9 million kina ($3.8 million) was set aside to pay two PNG consultants, Pacific Legal and Pacific Capital. UBS, Norton Rose, Ashurst and KPMG were allocated up to $14.6 million in advisory fees for their role. The issue for the Ombudsman was that 1.25 million kina was transferred to Pacific Capital, which then made payments over a three-month period worth a total 660,000 kina to a consulting firm, Pertusio Capital Partners. As the Ombudsman's commission noted in its report, Pertusio Partners had previously counted the acting secretary of the PNG Treasury, Dairi Vele, as a shareholder and director. The Ombudsman also criticised Mr Vele for hiring legal advisers without approval. In a response to the Ombudsman, Mr Vele denied he engaged the consultants and said it was Norton Rose who “actually retained” Pacific Legal.
Paper trail
The Australian Financial Review has established that on April 2, 2014, company filings were lodged to show Mr Vele was no longer a Pertusio shareholder. Less than two weeks later, on April 10, 2014, the funds began to be transferred from Pacific Capital to Pertusio. Mr Vele’s ownership in Pertusio had been transferred to Norwegian Lars Mortenson and Australian Nathan Chang. The company filings said a board meeting approving the transfer had been held more than two years earlier, on March 31, 2012. That was a Saturday, and the filings provide no explanation as to why the paperwork was lodged two years later and just weeks before the money was transferred from Pacific Capital.
The Commission of Inquiry is also expected to closely examine the advice given by Norton Rose to the PNG government. The Ombudsman found 15 laws may have been broken in approving the loan, which was deemed to be "highly inappropriate" and "speculative". Its final report, tabled in Parliament last month, made adverse findings against Mr O’Neill and said the deal to purchase the Oil Search shares was "irregular" due to the lack of consultation with state agencies and the bypassing of parliamentary approval.
The Ombudsman also made findings against Mr Marape, who was Finance Minister at the time. The new Prime Minister said he would resign if substantive findings were made against him. The Ombudsman found the lack of parliamentary approval may have breached the constitution and the country’s responsible lending laws.
Close scrutiny
The role of Mr Latimer is likely to be closely scrutinised by the Commission of Inquiry, as he acted as the principal adviser to the PNG government. He was present, according to the Ombudsman, at key moments of the deal including a visit to Abu Dhabi. Mr Latimer was part of a delegation headed by PNG’s then foreign minister Rimbink Pato, which had been dispatched to the United Arab Emirates to negotiate with Sheik Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Papuans were seeking the return of their 15 per cent stake in Oil Search, which had been pledged as collateral for a loan to cover their investment in the PNG LNG project.
Explicit in the agreement was a clause which allowed Abu Dhabi to forgive the loan and keep the shares.
It ultimately chose to do this, which pushed Mr O’Neill to borrow the $1.2 billion from UBS to buy the 10 per cent stake in Oil Search. Oil Search would then use the funds from the PNG government’s share purchase to buy into the promising, if controversial, Elk-Antelope gas fields, which form part of the $20 billion Papua LNG expansion plan that is awaiting final approvals.
Fifteen women and children have been killed in an early morning attack on a village in Papua New Guinea's Highlands region.
Monday's attack occurred in the Tagali local level government area of Hela province's Tari-Pori district.
Johnny Blades has been following developments and gave Dominic Godfrey the following update
Johnny Blades: So the attack happened in Karida village of Tagali local level government area. In the early hours of Monday morning, it appears the assailants snuck into the village and killed - in very brutal fashion with machetes and guns - these women and children. And it adds to, according to police, around six or seven other deaths since last week in this area, probably related to an ongoing tribal conflict. Although police who I spoke to were reluctant to pin it on one particular tribe until they knew a bit more, because as I say it was in the middle of the night, this attack, and details are quite scarce because there weren't many witnesses, but they are describing it as this sort of 'seek and hide' type warfare where we're tribes launched attacks out of the blue and then run, rather than maybe a more kind of direct confrontation seen typically in the past.
Dominic Godfrey: Now, this Highlands area has had its problems with tribal violence for many years, hasn't it?
Johnny Blades: Hela province and neighbouring Southern Highlands province in particular, they've had tribal warfare down the ages, but it really does seem to have surged in the last two or three years. And I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One, there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the big LNG gas project up there, in which the gas fields are centred in Hela, and to an extent, and Southern Highlands. And people are very frustrated about the lack of promised benefits from that. And that has also sometimes played into tribal conflicts. Also, there's been election-related problems. I mean, the 2017 General Election resulted in over 200 deaths, according to an Australian National University report, and many of those deaths were from tribal or inter-political rival fighting in the Highlands. So you know, it just creates chaos. And it plays into this sort of never ending cycle of revenge, where a tribe will look to avenge a grievance, and it might be that they sit on that grievance for months, and it comes later. And that's what the police were saying about this latest thing in Tagali, that there was no obvious causal event which immediately preceded it, but that the assailants could have been sitting on something which had happened a while back. As I say there's an ongoing conflict between at least between two or three tribes in that area.
Dominic Godfrey: Revenge, a dish best served cold. Now this latest vicious attack has happened on the electorate of PNG's prime minister, James Marape. What's his response been?
Johnny Blades: He's issued a very strong statement, saying that it's one of the saddest days of his life hearing about this attack in his own district. And he's vowed to use the strongest measures and law against the killers. This type of fighting, it's not just lives that were directly taken at the time, but it's this ongoing legacy and trauma which affects wider communities and it also knocks out public infrastructure. For instance, there has been some fighting in a different tribal conflict in Southern Highlands in the Kagua-Erave district which, according to authorities up there, has killed between 30 and 40 people in the last several months, and it's knocked out a school and a health centre. And public infrastructure is already struggling in areas like the Highlands, struggling for maintenance and so forth. So to be burnt down, and you know, to knock out that sort of stuff is devastating. So Marape, who's only been in the job a month or two, he's certainly vowing to take a tough line against this.
Dominic Godfrey: But the reach of the state, the police and central governments and so on, is limited out there in the Highlands, isn't it?
Johnny Blades: Exactly I mean, police are often out-manned and outgunned, because there's a problem with the proliferation of guns throughout these provinces - in fact, all the Highlands, but particularly these provinces, (a problem with) the automatic kind of weapons being in the hands of tribes who are at war with each other. A number of them have a huge amount of guns, and the police car do much about it. You know, they can investigate an attack like the one we are talking about in Tagali, but they will be stretched to be able to bring perpetrators to justice. And it's the same kind of pattern when the police are trying to crack down on sorcery accusation-related violence, which is also another glaring problem in the Highlands because police may go into a community to investigate but getting people to testify or to try and bring suspects in is really difficult, and the police are under resourced. So it's a huge struggle. Ending tribal violence is not going to just happen overnight.
China's top defence official has declared an intention to militarise the controversial Belt and Road Initiative to strengthen ties with South Pacific nations in what analysts warn is a significant challenge to Australia's strategic environment.
Defence Minister Wei Fenghe told a gathering of military chiefs from South Pacific and Caribbean nations in Beijing on Monday that the BRI would provide a "framework" for greater military co-operation, undercutting the communist regime's public insistence it is intended to be a vehicle for peaceful economic development.
According to a four-paragraph report from China's state-run news agency Xinhua, Mr Wei told the meeting "co-operation will be promoted in such areas as anti-terrorism, peacekeeping and disaster relief to strengthen exchanges and co-operation under the framework of the BRI".
Xinhua quoted the chief of staff of Guyana's Defence Force as telling Mr Wei his country would like to strengthen ties with the Chinese military.
The article does not mention which South Pacific countries attended but the meeting comes amid a rising battle for influence in the region between Australia, the US and other Western allies on one hand and China on the other.
Scott Morrison has made a hallmark of his prime ministership the "Pacific step up", with Australia seeking to enhance its diplomatic and defence ties with the region.
China denied last year it was seeking to establish a military presence in Vanuatu, while Australia and the US have pledged to develop a joint naval base on Manus Island in response to concerns that Papua New Guinea was slipping into China's orbit.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has made the BRI a signature issue to promote trade and infrastructure but it has been heavily criticised by the Trump administration for "debt-trap diplomacy", while Australia is also wary of the program.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director Peter Jennings said Mr Wei's comments were significant and not accidental.
"It's first official confirmation of a military connection to Belt and Road, which I and others have been warning about for some time," he said.
"It confirms the essentially correct approach of the Pacific step up and it demonstrates a point the government has been saying others denying there is Chinese interest in establishing a military presence in some of these island countries."
Mr Jennings said Australian officials would have to deepen the Pacific step up to deny China a military presence.
"A Chinese base in the Pacific is going to be something that immensely complicates our defence planning and we should work very hard to prevent that," he said.
A spokesman for International Development and the Pacific Minister Alex Hawke had not responded by deadline for comment on Mr Wei's remarks.
La Trobe Asia executive director Euan Graham likened efforts to prevent China securing a Pacific military presence to a game of "whack-a-mole". Once Beijing was rebuffed in one country, it turned its sights on another.
Dr Graham said "early intervention" was required to stop China gaining a military foothold, saying that was the lesson of Beijing's militarisation of the South China Sea, which it achieved with little opposition.
"Once it's established, it is going to be hard to close unless through use of force and that's failure of diplomacy," he said.
"If China wants a base in the region, they will find eventually someone pliant to having one."
Mr Wei's comments come as a Chinese spy ship makes it way south to observe joint Australian-US-Japanese military drills off the Queensland coast.
Australian defence chiefs have conceded they can do nothing to stop the Chinese spying on the exercises because they are in international waters and entitled to be there under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea –the same legal framework Australia and other nations rely on during transits of the South China Sea when challenged by the Chinese navy.
China's nationalistic Global Times newspaper quoted a defence academic saying accusations Beijing had sent a spy ship were exaggerated and aimed at fuelling theories China was a threat.
Papua New Guinea has responded with outrage over the killings of at least 22 people, including two pregnant women, in tribal violence Prime Minister James Marape has called the “saddest day of his life”.
The Post-Courier reported that at least 22 and up to 24 had been killed, after earlier reports said 16 had died.
Marape warned the perpetrators “I’m coming for you” and that they faced the death penalty after the slaughter in his electorate of Tari-Pori.
“Today is one of the saddest day of my life, many children and mothers innocently murdered in Munima and Karida villages of my electorate by Haguai, Liwi and OKiru gunmen,” Marape said in a statement on his Facebook page.
Health workers told local television EMTV that 16 people died in a 30 minute revenge attack on Monday and “it was difficult to identify the bodies because they were all chopped to pieces”.
Photos of the dead were posted on social media showing their bodies gathered up in mosquito nets.
Red Cross condemns killingsThe International Committess of Red Cross (ICRC) regularly provides humanitarian aid after tribal fighting and wants access to the conflict zone.
“It’s quite horrifying, we can’t independently confirm the casualties but these sort of actions is exactly what we encourage all parties to the tribal fighting in the Highlands to completely avoid,” said Ahmad Hallak, head of mission in PNG for the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) told SBS.
“In the last year at least I haven’t heard of any attacks that have killed so many innocent bystanders not directly involved in the fighting, it’s definitely concerning and I hope it’s not the start of a trend.
“With the introduction of modern weapons we are seeing more and more the humanitarian consequences that you see in countries that dominate dominate the news, on a much smaller scale, but similar humanitarian consequences.”
Tribal fighting in the PNG Highlands is commonplace but now it is fuelled by tensions over wealth distribution to rival impoverished landowners from the country’s billion dollar resources boom.
“There is a lot of disgruntled land owners who are dissatisfied with the gas agreements, they’re not satisfied with how the government and how multinational corporations have done deals with them,” said Chimbu highlander Bal Kama, a PhD candidate in law and governance at the Australian National University (ANU).
PM warns attackers ‘time is up’PNG police said it followed the killing of six people in an ambush after a compensation ceremony on Saturday.
“This is not a tribal fight where the opposing villages face each other on field [sic], this is guerrilla warfare,” chief inspector Teddy Augwi told the Post-Courier.
“The relatives of the deceased retaliated outside Karida village in an executed plan, raided and using high-powered rifles shot dead the … people.”
Marape warned the attackers their “time is up”.
Prime Minister James Marape … warning to the perpetrators that “your time is up”. Image: Twitter/SBS Twitter
“To all who have guns and kill and hide behind the mask of community, learn from what I will do to criminals who killed innocent people, I am not afraid to use strongest measures in law on you,” he said.
“Last week I responded to question on death penalty on the floor of Parliament, it is already a law.”
PNG has not repealed capital punishment though no-one has been executed for decades.
“With this incident the prime minister has made a commitment to see that the death penalty mechanism is put into place, the law has already been passed,” Kama said.
“Whether that’s a good thing or not, that’s a matter for debate, but I think we’ll see some development on that shortly.”
Local authorities in Tari have called for the government to order the deployment of security forces protecting resource mining projects to protect local communities.
“My electorate in Hela Province hosts LNG and power transmission line for Porgera gold mine and since 2012 I have been requesting for more permanent police yet Konedobu police headquarters has not supported me,” Marape said.
“How can a province of 400,000 people function with policing law and order with under 60 policemen, and occasional operational military and police that does no more than band-aid maintenance.
“In memory of the innocent who continue to die at the hands of gun-toting criminals, your time is up, before I had someone else to report to, now I have no one else to report to but the innocent you kill.”
When he was elected in May, Marape promised to make PNG the “wealthiest black Christian nation” on Earth using resource royalties.
Stefan Armbruster is the Brisbane-based correspondent for SBS World News, reporting on Queensland and the Pacific region. This article is republished with permission.
Agriculture and Livestock Minister John Simon met with China Railway International (CRI) and Chinese Embassy officials on the ambitious US$600 million (K2.03 billion) Papua New Guinea-China Integrated Agriculture Industrial Park Project (PNG-CIAIPP) last Thursday. The National’s senior writer MALUM NALU was there to get the updates.
JOHN Simon says development work on the US$600 million (K2.03 billion) PNG-CIAIPP in Eastern Highlands’ Korofeigu and Western Highlands’ Highlands Agriculture Training Institute (HATI) is likely to be launched in October.
He told The National that the proposed project paper would be submitted in September for Prime Minister James Marape’s approval in October. Simon said this after a meeting with China Railway International (CRI) officials, the PNG-CIAIPP investors, in Port Moresby on Thursday.
“It is a private investment project that will benefit Papua New Guineans and the country. It is not a loan, it is not going to cost the PNG Government anything.
“It is a mega investment that the company will commit in PNG. All they want from us is to provide them with land and they can export our agriculture produce.
“We have no problem with that because it will mean reliable and sustainable income for both farmers and PNG,” he added.
Simon said there was huge demand in China for organic agriculture produce which PNG-CIAIPP would process and pack for exports.
“We have engaged National Agriculture Sector Plan 2019-2028 team leader, Valentine Kambori, a former Director-General of National Agriculture Research Institute and Secretary for National Planning and Monitoring, to fast track the project proposal and paper.
“Then I will take to the Cabinet by August or September, so that the agreement can be approved and signed by Marape in October to kick off PNG-CIAIPP,” Simon said.
“We are working according to schedule, and the investors have been told that the project would be limited to State land.
“We will give them State land to set up their offices and godowns for shipping agriculture produce and products to China. My advice to them is to go into a partnership with the local people to help develop Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and micro SMEs.
“They (CRI) have also been told that only 3% of the land in PNG is owned by the State. So, they should go into partnership with local landowners for future operation expansion plans,” he added.
On reviving PNG’s livestock industry, Simon said the first heads of cattle would be brought in from Cairns, Australia, by September.
“We are looking at bringing in more than 20,000 cattle, 5,000 every month. We are also planning to import 10,000 goats and 10,000 sheep as well.
“This is our bid to revive the Agriculture and Livestock Industry, which is now cynically dubbed by critics as ‘Agriculture and Deadstock’.
“After September, we should have enough livestock to distribute to budding entrepreneurs to get the livestock industry kicking and rise to our past heydays.
“Farmers can then start breeding in ranches and in their residential surroundings for meat consumption and sale,” he added.Waii … we are here to create wealth for the people of PNG
PNG-CIAIPP team leader Brian “Mushroom” Waii says the Government, through Simon, wants the project to begin as soon as possible.
“A directive, in no uncertain terms (from Simon), was that this project must be expedited,” Waii said.
“This includes getting the National Executive Council (NEC) approval, then we will progress immediately to the next stage, that is mobilising development operations.
“It is also heartening to note that Simon, and the Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL) acting secretary Daniel Kombuk, are fast-tracking the proposed project.
“It gives us much confidence that a veteran of agriculture, and a former secretary for National Planning Valentine Kambori and Director-General of National Agriculture Research Institute, Valentine Kambori, are working closely with the minister on the official approval of the project.
“The important thing, moving forward, is to start rolling out the project strategy and implementation in the provinces. There’ll be slight changes from the initial plan, but all in all, the focus of development is still the same,” he said.
“We are here to create wealth for the people of PNG,” he added.
Waii said the delay since November 2017, when the project was initially signed in Port Moresby, did not deter the investor, CRI.
“That shows CRI is genuine in wanting the PNG-CIAIPP to succeed for the benefit of all. CRI is a genuine and determined investor.
“In most cases, when an investor is here to spend its own money to develop an important sector like agriculture, delays would dissuade them.
“They then to pull out and go elsewhere. In this case, CRI has demonstrated its genuineness by remaining committed to the project potential,” he added.
Waii said the project could not come at a better time, especially with the formation of a new Government, and the focus of Marape on agriculture to drive the economy.
“The way forward is that as soon as NEC gives the approval, we can start construction work on the parks, and also subsidiary parks nationwide.
“The subsidiary parks will be located in areas with high value crops. CRI is prepared to stay here for the long haul, whether it be for 99 years or 1,000 years.
“This is not like any civil construction work, where the contractor leaves after completion of the project. This is a long-term agriculture project.
“We will now work closely with the DAL and technical adviser Kambori to expedite the project, and complete the NEC submission and required protocol.
“We hope that the government will provide suitable land and policy environment for us. We will provide all the technical expertise, all the planning and design, and most importantly, the financing,” he added.
By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK - The National ACTING Police Commissioner Francis Tokura wants to sit down with Gari Baki to discuss the recent changing of the guard in the constabulary involving the two of them and others. “We are career police officers and we must not have any ill-feelings regarding the National Executive Council (NEC) decision,” he told The National last weekend. “I’m planning to see Baki this week about all these latest appointments.” He said he heard that he had been appointed acting police commissioner for three months but was yet to see the gazettal notice on that. “I will have to go to police headquarters to see if there is a gazettal notice about my appointment.” Police Minister Bryan Kramer last Friday had instructed Baki to vacate the police commissioner’s office because his contract had expired in May. Also to leave with Baki are his two deputies, assistant commissioners Raphael Huafolo (administration) and Jim Andrews (operations) whose contracts had expired. Replacing them are assistant commissioners Joanne Clarkson (administration) and Peter Guinness (operations). It could not be confirmed yesterday whether Tokura, who was in charge of the Bougainville Police Service and Baki had already met in Port Moresby. Both men could not be contacted for a comment yesterday. Kramer said Tokura had told him earlier that he would be meeting Baki at the police headquarters in Port Moresby. “Tokura has advised me to move in yesterday (Monday) and meet with Baki,” he said. Kramer said yesterday he had not received any information that the two had met. Baki said last Sunday he would obtain a restraining order from the court to stop his removal. He did not respond yesterday to questions sent to him on that issue. Kramer said he had not received any such order from the court as of yesterday. He invited anyone wishing to lodge a complaint over the appointment of Tokura as acting commissioner, plus Clarkson and Guinness as his deputies, to do so.
CITY Pharmacy Ltd (CPL) Group has started the “Trainee directors programme” aimed at developing young aspiring Papua New Guineans. In its first year, CPL group has appointed two staff – Eunice Parua, pictured, and Roberta Morlin as their trainee directors. CPL has always been at the forefront of women empowerment in Papua New Guinea. Whether it was the Pride of PNG Women’s Awards or the PNG Cricket Lewas women’s national team, CPL has over the last 30-years, been involved in women’s development and support programmes. Each chosen trainee director would be allocated a current CPL director as mentor for a year. Trainee directors will participate in board and audit committee meetings but would not vote on any board resolution. They are able to observe first hand, processes, procedures and learn the mechanics of being a director at the coalface. At the end of the period, a certificate would be issued certifying that they had served as a trainee on the CPL board. Parua, 29, is from Western Highlands. She is a lawyer by profession who has been in private legal practice since February 2013. She practices as a litigation lawyer and had appeared on numerous occasions in the district, national and supreme courts. Parua specialises in commercial, contract, tort, family and other civil areas of law. While 29-year-old Morlin is the head of the Digital Strategic Business Unit at Bank South Pacific Ltd. With a passion in artificial intelligence (AI), Morlin continues to develop her skills in AI and data science while gaining practical digital experience in the financial industry. In 2016, she participated in an entrepreneurship training programme at Draper University in Silicon Valley, California, US, where she developed a passion for high end technology and date driven industries. Morlin possess a bachelor’s of arts, PNG Studies and International relations from Divine Word University. Graduated with excellence, she received an academic research award for a submitted dissertation on “Cyber security and PNG’s national state security” in 2012. With a passion for market research in 2014, she had the opportunity to country manage market research projects in PNG and the Solomon Islands for a period with Tebbutt Research, Market Research Consultants.
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