New Pangtel board to be announced
By MOHAMMAD BASHIR
A new Pangtel board has been appointed and will be announced this week after it is gazetted.
Communications and Information Minister Patrick Tammur said this when questioned at a luncheon hosted by the National Broadcasting Corporation.
“Yes, a new board has been appointed and will be announced when the decision is gazetted this week,” Mr Tammur said.
Mr Tammur said he was aware of the controversies surrounding the acting director general Charles Punaha’s appointment but that will be dealt with when the new board is in place.
Pangtel has been without a board for the past three years and all its executive powers were assumed by an acting chief executive, whose own appointment in April last year has been questioned in court
The last board comprising Jim Josiah Nomane – chairman (current Member for Chuave), Clark Kuluniasi, Thomas Niniga (deceased), Coroluse Ketsimur and Charles Punaha (CEO – ex officio) expired on March 15, 2005, and there has been no appointment of a new board under various ministers in the last government including Arthur Somare.

New Ireland gets tough on logging
By ELIZABETH VUVU
THE New Ireland government is considering imposing a ban on logging activities in the province for an indefinite period.
Governor Sir Julius Chan said that by any standard, the logging industry in New Ireland has had a joyride dictating its own terms and conditions with little regard to the laws and regulations of the land.
Therefore, he said his government would consider taking the toughest option available, which was imposing a moratorium on logging in the province.
There are less than 10 logging operations in New Ireland.
Sir Julius has not issued any new permit or licence for logging activities since taking office.
He was responding to a statement by a community elder from New Hanover, Gerard Sigulogo, who called for drastic measures against illegal logging operations in the province.
Sir Julius said he has his own reservations about the conduct and performance of logging operators as he does about the track record of many operators implicated in the forestry inquiry and the raping of forest resources at the expense of the people.
The governor said while the government welcomes new investment and industries, the onus was on the foreign developers to respect the host government and people and abide by lawful practices.
Sir Julius said he was studying the carbon trade issue and how it would benefit his people, when they forego logging.

Urologists treat 18 in Lae
EIGHTEEN patients who had been waiting for almost two years, with tubes inserted in their bodies to assist urine flow, can finally go home and live a normal life.
This was revealed by Dr Osborne Liko, coordinator of urology services and the country’s only urologist, in Lae last week.
Dr Liko and his team were at the Angau Memorial Hospital last week to perform tran-surethral resection of the prostate (TURP) on patients with problems in their kidneys, bladder and the urethra.
He was accompanied by Eunice Laim, urology nurse and manageress of the Port Moresby General Hospital theatre, and Timmy Tingnee, a general surgeon in his final stage of training to be a urologist.
TURP is a high-tech procedure that uses high voltage to operate on patients from within using special fluids and the aid of a machine that consists of a telescope, camera and screen. “The beauty of this procedure is that we cut from inside and patients can go home as soon as the tube is released,” Dr Liko said.

Braun hospital receives K160,000 for rehab work
MORE than K160,000 has been given to the Finschhafen district administration to start rehabilitation work on the Braun rural hospital. Built more than 50 years ago by the Evangelical Lutheran Church as a health centre, the facility has provided services that are on par with other major government referral hospitals in the country.
The money was the first installment of a K1.8 million allocation made by the National Government, and Health Minister Sasa Zibe said it showed a commitment by the Government to fund church-run facilities in PNG. Finschhafen district administrator Carl Baga received the money on Friday.

Sir Paulias encourages downstream processing
GOVERNOR-General Sir Paulias Matane has called on the people of East New Britain to go into downstream processing so they can enjoy maximum benefit from their cash crops.
Sir Paulias made the call during the launch of the Toma/Vunadidir copra mill at Toma recently.
He said currently people are not reaping the full benefit from their cash-crops such as cocoa and coconut because entities buying these cash crops are paying farmers less than the current world market value for these commodities.
East New Britain Development Corporation (ENBDC) Chairman William Lamur said this has prompted him and other concerned farmers to form the East New Britain Development Corporation to assist farmers in the province sell their products and get maximum returns as opposed to what they are currently getting.
He said ENBDC has already identified an export market and is now ready for full production.

Museum launches guide book
A RESOURCE handbook to help students and teachers understand the National Museum and Art Gallery was launched in Port Moresby on Friday.
The handbook, titled Lets Visit the National Museum, is for upper primary schools.
It will be used by teachers as a guide to bring their students to learn and visit the country’s museum.
National Museum and Art Gallery spokesman Michael Kisimbo said the students will not only have a teaching-learning experience but the visit will leave a lifelong impression that it is hoped will prompt them to comeback in the near future.
Director Simon Poraituk said museums provide an alternative form of learning to formal education that arouses curiosity and promotes aesthetic learning through the process of active participation of the learner.
He said the resource handbook is to assist teachers and students in upper primary to integrate their learning process with exhibits at the museum.

Department reviews its service delivery
THE Department of Provincial and Local Level Government Affairs is determined on reversing the trend of service delivery in the country.
Director of standards and inspections, Julius Wargirai said if basic services were to reach the people, there need to be a link between national policies and provincial and district priorities; collaboration between national agency programmes and those administered at the provincial levels and an integration of plans and monitoring.
With current statistics showing that basic government services to many rural areas were non-existent, the department was adamant on setting a new trend in service delivery.
It was also determined on implementing policies stipulated under the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Governments regarding the establishment of coordinating and monitoring agencies in provinces.
Mr Wargirai told participants of a three-day management workshop in Lae, Morobe province, that the changes his division was spearheading were to be used to have services delivered to the people.
If this was to happen, provincial public servants need to take on a more holistic approach to development issues.

Illegal structures dominate Lae
THE Morobe physical planning board does not have “the teeth” to effect its own decisions.
Several stopwork and demolition notices have been served in recent months on developers of several “illegal” developments in the city, but have not been implemented because of lack of equipment, it has been claimed.
Early last week, provincial lands adviser Billy Lawrence said while the board had served notices on several companies, it could not tear down or stop construction work from continuing on many of these properties as it did not have the machinery.
He admitted that was the reason the steel fencing at Steward Park, Lae’s only remaining picnic spot, was still standing.
In March, the National Court in Lae granted the building board a leave of judicial review for the Morobe provincial government, which had sought to prevent Tropical Charters building picket fences or buildings at Voco Point’s Steward Park.
The substantive matters have not been heard.

Family health group gets K64,000
THE New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID) has presented K64,000 to the PNG Family Health Association (PNGFHA) in Morobe province for its operations.
PNGFHA executive director Rhona Yabri thanked NZAID for the support and its ongoing contributions to the social and economic wellbeing of disadvantaged groups in PNG.
Ms Yabri said the NZAID funds would be used under PNGFHA’s community-based distribution project in Morobe province.
“The funds totalling K64,900 will be used to train and empower 40 community and religious leaders on sexual and reproductive health and family planning.”
The leaders are expected to come from five districts that the PNGFHA is based in.

MP: PX disaster
DEPUTY Opposition leader Bart Philemon has slammed the Government for focusing on improving Air Niugini international service at the expense of ordinary Papua New Guineans and other domestic travellers.
Air Niugini de-commissioned four F28 4000 series in August last year and it “has been permitted to pursue plans to buy a Boeing 787 Dreamliner”. “I’m not sure what Air Niugini’s priorities are anymore,” Mr Philemon said.

‘Show a waste’
THE Goroka Coffee Festival has been described as a total waste of money, which did very little to bring tangible benefits to the ailing coffee industry.
Coffee producer Fero Yasona, proprietor of Ramu Coffee Ltd, said there was no reason to celebrate when the industry was struggling in the face of economic adversities.
He said those who were involved in the festival did not even grow a single coffee tree in their backyards, and had no knowledge about the coffee industry.
“Why the singsings and celebrations when we are struggling to keep an industry, which was once the backbone of this great country,” he said.