By Matthew Vari
Sunday, April 19, 2015 (Sunday Weekly Magazine)
Sunday, 7 February 2016
Jokema's take on the Changing trend of music in PNG
By Matthew Vari
Sunday, April 19, 2015 (Sunday Weekly Magazine)
Awards concept growing the profile of PNG Music
By Matthew Vari
Sunday, April 19, 2015 (Sunday Weekly Magazine)
Anslom and Bilip dominate Music Awards
By Matthew Vari
Sunday, April 19, 2015 (Sunday Weekly Magazine, PNG)
Vital for revised OLIPPAC to be passed in 2015: Gelu
By
MATTHEW VARI
WITH the delay is the passage of the Revised Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates (OLIPPAC) initially set for February’s session of parliament- Registrar for Political Parties and Candidates (RPPC) Dr Alphonse Gelu maintained the importance of its passage in 2015.
He attributed this to the timeframe considered to fully implement the changes in time for the General Elections in 2017 and also to prepare political parties especially.
“Unfortunately we were promised in February this year, on the revised Organic law and it did not go through,” Dr Gelu said.
“We kept on going there to find out if it’s on the notice paper, but then someone there told us that it is in the May sitting.”
“We are now looking forward to the May sitting to find out whether this law going through, as it is out of our hands.”
He said the law was vital for the country and its importance in getting through the first reading will get it through to the committee stage where the general public can add their views.
“That is where if you do not agree with one particular thing in the changes you can voice your concerns, and then to move on to the second and third reading.”
“I have made it clear to the authorities that it has to be in 2015 that we need to pass this law- we can’t keep pushing this until 2016.”
“Moving it to 2016 could be bad in the fact that it might not work effectively because some of those provisions, we need to do it now so that we can start working with our political parties to address some of those things that we need to improve.”
“That is why from the passing in Parliament it has to give us time.”
He added that if left till 2016, the possibility of not fully implementing the law would be high to a point of its implementation after the National Elections.
“We have to prepare all the parties before the 2017 General Elections,” he concluded.
Wednesday, 3 February 2016
Status of Creative Writing from a Legend of PNG Literature
By Matthew Vari
Sunday, April 12, 2015 (Sunday Weekly Magazine, PNG)
Planning Act to be tabled in May session
Caption: Planning Minister Charles Abel
By MATTHEW VARI
PLANNING Minister Charles Abel indicated that the Planning Act will presented in parliament in the May session.
He made the comments during the presentation of funds to the University of Papua New Guinea for its newly established Sustainable Development Degree Program- saying that the Act would bring forth and elevate many of the principles and consequent policies passed recently from the planning department.
“It will catalyze some of the subsequent and cascading policies like the Population and the Wash policy that we have launched this year,” Minister Abel said.
“It is to elevate strategic assets and those are our natural endowments including our mineral and petroleum wealth, and that is why the cascading policy from that is the Sovereign Wealth Fund for example.”
“The planning act will make sure these principles and plans are linked to the budgetary process- they are not just documents and airy fairy statements like how we have been treating our constitution to a large degree.”
He said the Planning Act would endure the next Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) thorugh the Planning Department will have the mandate to basically shape the budget every year, making sure that the various government programs mentioned continue to be funded.
“It so that we are not only talking about it, but are acting on them - not only means acting collectively as a nation but also means acting individually through lives based on principles that is at the heart and soul of this whole process.”
“Development must be assumed individually, we must have it in our hearts and activate it by how we behave- surely isn’t that they way we should do it.”
“A better PNG is built on individuals and families. What we are saying is that we can’t have two cars, two house, and four wives, it is just not sustainable.”
Abel added that happiness is not about more resources but to be useful with what is available at hand.
“Our culture tells us that happiness is about useful living- it’s about community values, knowing that you are contributing to a better world in the future.”
Economic growth not the solution to everything: Abel
By MATTHEW VARI
MINISTER for National Planning and Monitoring Charles Abel has said that the preferred economic growth was vital to creating a better looked after population was not the way for the country to maintain a sustainable existence.
He said as a developing country, PNG has been getting lost in the subscription that economic growth not a solution to everything.
“In fact there are statistics coming out now through a conference by the INA (Institute of National Affairs) recently with ANU (Australian National University) also coming up presenting data that is showing a paradigm shift that is happening everywhere in the world, with statistics showing that GDP growth correlates to human happiness to a degree, after which it just flattens out,” Minister Abel said.
“Let us not subscript to this development ground pathway that says grow grow grow and forget about the consequence- tomorrow we wake up and the place is in a mess and we start to say why didn’t we keep some tree and some tuna and why did we let the population grow endlessly.”
“That is not being smart, it is tempting because you deal with issues like school fees and services everyday we are tempted to make short term solutions.”
He said that there has to be a balance of both that is going to take time ultimately getting to a stage where the population is stabilized, creating an economy based on strategic assets that is the basis for an export economy as well.
“A lot of developed countries sustain their lifestyles
getting cheap resources from us- exploiting our weak systems, they exploit the
fact that we are caught in a poverty cycle and utilize that to come and bargain
with us and take our assets cheaply,” Abel explained.
“That is how they sustain themselves, that is how some
of them are growing, surviving by extracting cheap resources from us and so you
can see at the end of the day if we continue down this path we get to a point
where a correction is going to happen.”
“That correction may already be happening, when you
see these typhoons, hurricanes with strengths that have never been seen before.”
“You start to think that maybe something is happening,
where human development needs to take a good look at itself.”
Abel presents K1.5m for Sustainable Development degree program
Caption:
Minister Abel presenting the cheque to Acting Vice Chancellor Prof
Vincent Malaibe, with pioneering students of the program.
By MATTHEW VARI
Sunday, April 5, 2015 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)
MINISTER for National Planning and Monitoring, Charles Abel, presented K1.5 million to the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) on Wednesday to fund the newly established Bachelor of Sustainable Development Degree Program under the School of Natural and Physical Science (SNPS).
With the pioneering intake of 22 student to take the program,- Minister Abel was informed to expect the first batch of graduates to complete studies by 2018, spearheading the governments National Strategy for Responsible Sustainable Development plan.
The funding is part of the commitment made by both institutions in June 2014 through the signing of a five year MoU.
K1.5 million being the initial portion of a K2.5 million commitment made by the Ministry for the university to facilitate a number of initiatives geared towards progressing the major government strategy drive.
Dean of SNPS Professor Peter Petsul said that the school was excited about the prospects of the program which he said had been on the drawing board for a number of years to be finally implemented.
“Last year we had a conference which touched on issues relating to Sustainable Development,” Prof Petsul said.
“We have carried on from that with the start of the program this year by taking in the foundation intake for this program.”
“It is a new root where by we give opportunity to our students who have done science and would want to come back and continue in how to plan and all issues related to sustainable existence.”
Minister Abel congratulated and acknowledged the pioneer student for taking the new program, calling them groundbreaking students leading the way.
“In the sense, you are committing yourselves and your lives to a large degree to a new field, so I congratulate you for being bold, even though you could have chosen other fields to study in.”
“Let us make sure the path you now have set on comes to fruition by us working together, from the government to make sure that the important principles behind this we subscribe to and stick to them.”
“As far as I am concerned from this government and our planning perspective this is very much the way we want to go in the longer term,” Abel said.
He said that the country could lead the way in a development revolution- with time being vital for PNG to choose as early as possible in the planning processes and development path direction.
“All the opportunity cost that we are foregoing at the moment by choosing a copycat development pathway because we are caught up in a development cycle that is harder and harder to disentangle ourselves from as the population continues to grow as the needs of our people are apparently before us,” the Minister explained.
“It is very important that we recognize that it is even harder is come up with the policy directions and strategies to begin to exit from that sort of development pathway.”
“It is about how we as academics and planners and citizens of PNG begin to recognize that and start to make a transition.”
He said the approach being taken by the national government in effectively sustainably planning the country’s development was enshrined in the preambles of the constitution clearly.
“It is nothing new or complicated we are talking about here, it is also imbedded in our culture, and in the principles of Christianity.”
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