Lewas skipper wins CPL award for role

Posted on The National

PAPUA New Guinea Lewas captain Kaia Arua won the 2019 City Pharmacy Limited medal for the best player in women’s cricket.
The 28-year-old left-arm bowler was awarded the medal after edging out Lewas teammates Ravini Oa and Brenda Tau.
A gracious Arua, in her acknowledgement, thanked her teammates and the coaching staff for their confidence in her role in the women’s national team.
She is taking a lead role in the Yahama Cassowaries at the women’s T20 Smash cricket tournament in Port Moresby.
The tournament started last week and is in its second week.
The semifinals and finals are scheduled for this weekend at the Amini Park.
The T20 Smash will also provide sufficient match practice for the Lewas who leave for Scotland.
Arua and Oa will head the Lewas’ campaign at the T20 World Cup qualifier in Scotland later this month.

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/lewas-skipper-wins-cpl-award-for-role/

K18bil in taxes unreported

By HELEN TARAWA - The National

THE Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) has disclosed under-reporting of taxes worth K18 billion by 127 companies in 2016.
IRC acting Commissioner-General Dr Alois Daton revealed yesterday that underreporting was one of the discrepancies that was found in the initiatives undertaken to recover money.
Daton said of the 127 companies, 96 were large companies and 31 were small to medium enterprises.
Treasurer Sam Basil commended IRC for its efforts, saying that this was a good, promising plan that it had undertaken to recover a targetted K1bil this year.
“This is welcoming news but recovering those monies would be difficult,” he said.
“We will stand with IRC to ensure that their funds in the budget would be available to fund auditors and tax inspectors to front up to the companies and bring in the much-needed funds to contribute to the Waigani account.
“I commend IRC for turning their spotlight on that and the involvement of provincial governments, we would like to close the gap with engaging them.”
Daton said IRC still had 2017, 2018 and 2019 to go through to find out if there were also records of under-reporting of taxes.
“We have done some analysis around the information returns which are being lodged by tax payers and we have identified underreporting,” he said.
“Our team has worked on underreporting and the value of it is K18 billion which is only for 2016 records.”
Daton said between now and October, IRC would be talking to those taxpayers, matching the data they had and the taxpayers would be asked to come in to confirm it.
“If there is a mistake, we will make the adjustments which will be made by October and in November-December we are going to bring that K1b additional revenue.
“There will be penalties once we have done all the adjustments and everything, penalties for underreporting.
“The message that we are going to deliver to the taxpayers is that they must be making full and honest disclosure and be honest in their dealings with IRC.
“Monies collected from underreporting will give us about K1bil but that’s just a conservative figure from about K5 billion that we can collect from this exercise,” he said.
“From this K18 billion, we hope to raise about K1billion towards the end of the year.
“And this K1billion is additional to K8.6b that IRC has been tasked to raise this year for the 2019 budget.”
Daton said the second initiative was to look at IRC’s K5bil debt recovery.
“We hope that by talking to taxpayers and talking to tax agents, we will look at working with taxpayers, ensure that if they to pay their base tax we will forgive their penalties,” he said.
“We are going to take to tax agents and stakeholders as well to find out whether they come up with suggestions, forgiving penalties, collect base tax so we can reduce the debt of K5 billion we are carrying.
“We will call a tax agency liaison group meeting where both the Treasurer and vice-treasurers will be present.
“We want to stress home the fact that tax agents and their clients must be honest in their dealing and pay their right amount of tax so that Government does not lose out on any money.”

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/k18bil-in-taxes-unreported/

Students to pay 50-75 per cent of adult bus fare: ICCC boss

Posted on The National

ALL students are supposed to pay 50 to 75 per cent of the maximum adult PMV (Private Motor Vehicle) bus-fare, says Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC) chief executive officer Paulus Ain.
Ain told The National the consumer price control arrangement allowed for students to pay below the maximum fare chargeable by operators.
Ain said that applied to students from the primary schools to the tertiary institutions.
“In the current price control arrangement that we have in-place, ICCC provides concession fares for students from primary to tertiary institutions which we consider are reasonable for everyone across the country,” Ain said.
“For example, the adult fare for all NCD (National Capital District) routes is K1, therefore 50 percent and 75 per cent of the maximum fare is 50t and 80t respectively.
“The current ICCC’s approved fares is applied to all operators providing PMV services along declared routes throughout the country.”
Ain said that as a regulator, it also considered the high cost of running a PMV business and could not totally remove busfare payments for students as had been the requests lately by members of the public.
“We also consider the high costs of running the PMV businesses and associated costs of wear and tear operators pay during the period of operation while at the same time trying to make a profit. We are of the view that provision of transport services to the travelling public is an essential service.
“The operators provide this service without subsidy support from anyone including the Government.
“Recently, we also received views from some PMV operators requesting to increase students’ fares to adult fares.
“This is something that will be addressed during the current review into pricing for the PMV and Taxi service industry.
“The PMV fares is set only for declared routes and urban routes through the country. The distance is one factor that attributed to the increased PMV fares.”.
The Independent Consumer and Competition Commission sets the PMV fares for declared routes and urban routes annually through a national gazette notice.
The PMV fares schedule can be obtained from the ICCC office.

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/students-to-pay-50-75-per-cent-of-adult-bus-fare-iccc-boss/

Student loan plan set

By HELEN TARAWA - The National

PRIME Minister James Marape, pictured, has announced the Government’s approval of an endowment fund, part of which will assist students obtain study loans from next year.
The prime minister made the announcement at the closing of the 2019 PNG Update Forum on Friday where he informed students, academics and the public of decisions by the National Executive Council (NEC), including the endowment fund.
“Two nights ago (on Wednesday evening) in Cabinet we made a critical decision on policy to give an indication as to how our state-owned entities (SOEs) would split their revenues,” he said.
“We’ve indicated that 50 per cent of the revenues will come to budget support, we’re putting capital to 20 per cent for the SOE’s own expenditures.
“And 10 per cent of the revenue we are looking at community assistance programmes, especially churches. Another seven per cent will now start what past governments have talked about – saving for the future through the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) concept – our government will make it happen.”
Marape said seven per cent of every earnings from the SOEs will go towards the SWF setup. “I want to link the SWF to the students assistance programme going into the future, so these are some of the decisions that have been made,” he said.
Marape said in order to benefit from the loan scheme, interested students will have to be registered under the National Identity and Civil Registry and they must have an acceptance letter from the institution they last attended.
He said they would enter into a soft loan which the students can repay for the rest of their lives.
“Some of these discussions when we announce them in September, I want you to pick a copy and tell me if this is workable and this is not workable,” he said.
“The only thing that we will not change is the 10 Commandments that Moses received on Mt Sinai.
“Our constitution is possibly changeable, our organic laws are changeable and our Acts of Parliament are definitely changeable so when I look through them, the policies of government are really the ones we can change at any time, we can change to policies that can work for us,” Marape said.
In January, Higher Education secretary Fr Jan Czuba said the department was developing loan packages for students.
He said the loan scheme was to help students to be able to afford university and college education and help ease the financial struggle of parents, especially those from rural areas.
Czuba said that scheme was a priority for the government and so had to be funded under the national budget. In June, Higher Education Research, Science and Technology Minister Nick Kuman said he wanted to reduce tuition fees for tertiary institutions to allow financially disadvantage students to enrol.
Kuman said he wanted students, especially those from remote areas, to attend tertiary institutions they had qualified for with affordable fees.
“I will pursue the tertiary loan scheme for students to apply for loans to pay for their fees and when they work after graduating, they can repay their loans,” he said.
“Currently, the fees are too high that bright children from remote areas throughout the country cannot afford, so they remain back in the villages. With the tertiary loan scheme, it will enable them to afford the fees for their desired institutions to pursue their goals.”

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/student-loan-plan-set/

Sir Salamo not the right person to head UBS loan inquiry

By FRANCIS NII - PNG Attitude blog

KUNDIAWA - Prime Minister James Marape is to be commended for the appointment of a commission of inquiry to investigate the UBS loan affair, however the appointment of former chief justice Sir Salamo Injia to head the inquiry is dubious.

This is already a compromise of the outcome of the inquiry before it has even started and is not a good sign for the Marape government in its announced campaign of fighting corruption.

If Marape is serious about cleaning up PNG and ridding this country of corruption, the multi-billion dollar UBS loan is a classic case to start with.

This is an issue that has brought so much pain and misery to the country and its people.

It is essential for people who want the whole truth that no stone is left unturned in pursuing exactly what happened and who was responsible for it.

The whole truth must surface and if anyone has broken the law, they must suffer the full force of the law.

The commission’s chairperson will play a decisive and leading role in the inquiry, and the appointee must be someone of honest and unblemished character who can honestly, transparently and impartiality investigate the case.

Sir Salamo Injia is not the right person to make that happen.

He has a dented record of partiality relating to his handling of Peter O’Neill’s arrest warrant in the Paul Paraka case.

It was Sir Salamo who, in his capacity as the chief justice on a one-man bench, granted O’Neill a stay order contrary to a district court’s decision.

The stay order prevented police from arresting O’Neill on allegations of official corruption involving the payment of K71.8 million to Paul Paraka Lawyers.

Sir Salamo subsequently quashed the case citing technical errors as his grounds. Sadly, the substantive matter was not given the benefit of a fair trial in a prudent court of justice.

Prior to these decisions, Sir Salamo was seen having a jovial time with O’Neill at a football game while O’Neill’s application to stay the arrest warrant was pending decision before the court.

The image of the two men, the head of the judiciary and the head of state, went viral on social media.

The verdict upholding the stay order was already reached by social media users before the court actually handed down its decision and, as predicted, the case was consigned to history courtesy of Sir Salamo.

For this reason, the former chief justice isn’t a fit person to head this important inquiry. Two names that came to mind are Sam Koim and Sir Arnold Amet.

If prime minister James Marape is adamant to keep Sir Salamo in the role, it can mean one thing only - and that is the appointment is a calculated move by Marape with O’Neill’s hand in it to muddy the whole inquiry.

Go to this link for more: https://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2019/08/sir-salamo-not-the-right-person-to-head-ubs-loan-inquiry.html

Whistle Blowers Act approved

By LUKE KAMA - The National

PRIME Minister James Marape, pictured, says Cabinet has approved the Whistle Blowers Act and it will be taken to Parliament during the next sitting for enactment.
Marape revealed this in a media conference in Port Moresby yesterday when announcing the Government’s decision to establish a Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the controversial UBS loan.
“It will be brought to Parliament in the next sitting to get it enacted so that it will protect our people who are giving information on corruption in the country,” Marape said.
He said the act would also protect people to give evidence in UBS loan saga during the inquiry.
“We are also looking at getting the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) Act to Parliament before the end of this year and this Government is committed to fight and eradicate corruption in the country,” Marape said.
The Whistle Blowers Act protects people who report against corruption and corrupt dealings from within their organisation from facing disciplinary actions against the actions.
It is one of the legislations that the country and the people have been crying for Parliament to enact so it protects the people who wants to report and fight against corruption.

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/whistle-blowers-act-approved/

Government names Sir Salamo as head of UBS inquiry

By LUKE KAMA and HELEN TARAWA - The National

THE Government has approved a Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the controversial UBS loan and appointed former Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia, pictured, to head it.
Prime Minister James Marape said K4 million was allocated for the work – expected to be completed in three months – with lawyer Sam Koim, the former chairman of the disbanded Task Force Sweep team, appointed principal legal counsel, to assist Sir Salamo.
Marape said Sir Salamo’s appointment had been made after wider consultation and he was a man of respectable standing and integrity who would deliver what the country and the people wanted to know concerning the UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland) K3 billion loan. If there is any doubts, he was the person overlooked by the previous government of former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill for his reappointment as the chief justice for the second term,” he said.
“I am confident that he is the right choice.”
Marape said the terms of reference for the inquiry covered the entire aspects of the transaction and it going back to the IPIC loan deal.
“As I have promised to the people and the country, we need to have answers to how and why this UBS loan was obtained?” he said.
“Whether it was done properly in compliance of our country’s laws, who are the principal players and what benefit did the country gain from the loan transactions?
“These are critical questions and the people are entitled to know the answers.”
Marape said the inquiry will look into the germination of the idea, where it came from, how it started, whether it is beneficial to the country, if there were the losses made and if there was impropriety or corruption.
“The inquiry will find out if any money was gained illegally in the transaction hidden somewhere,”he said.
“I will not stand in the way in rescuing this so this becomes a pointer to our nation’s demand to fight corruption in its fullest.
“As prime minister, I intend to make my mark in the country.
“Growing the economy but without putting the check mechanisms to stop wastage through deliberate complacency in corruption or character complacency in attitude and recklessness is something that we must stop.”
Marape said the two men appointed would be able to select candidates for the appointment of other technical positions required for the inquiry.
He said the Ombudsman Commission’s report on the loan dealt only with government officials and not private people and companies.
“So the COI will investigate the commercial aspects as well as the conduct of those private individuals and companies,” he said.
“Once the inquiry is complete, its findings and report will be tabled in Parliament and when adopted, it will be referred to the relevant authority to take appropriate actions.”
Marape said COI was appointed and it was time for the public to give their evidence to the inquiry to assist the team.

Go to this link for more: https://www.thenational.com.pg/govt-names-sir-salamo-as-head-of-ubs-inquiry/