Concert in Kokopo to raise funds
THE public in Kokopo in East New Britain will be entertained this weekend to a thrilling musical concert that will be staged to raise more funds for the devastated Oro province.
The concert will feature prominent PNG musicians like George Telek, Uralom and Leonard Kania, and John Warbat.
Other local bands like the Erex Suisui will also take to the stage to perform their hit songs while more bands in the province both rock and gospel have shown interests to participate.
Companies like SP Brewery, Tropicana, Pacific Industries and the Lings Freezers will sponsor the event.

Unauthorised buildings in Lae
ILLEGAL buildings are mushrooming in Lae and the authorities cannot do anything about it because of lack of resources and manpower.
One such building is being built in front of a Government office.
Sources in the building industry said the Building and Physical Planning Board was in the process of applying for an injunction against the developer.
They said the project had not been approved and that the developer had ignored a notice from the board earlier this year.
“There are a lot of other buildings that the board has not approved,” one source said.

Angry villagers shut down mine ops
By ZACHERY PER
ANGRY villagers in Kainantu reportedly entered Kainantu gold mine and shut down its operations.
Acting Eastern Highlands provincial police commander chief Insp David Seine said yesterday he had dispatched police reinforcement to the mine after villagers forced its closure.
Police reinforcements dispatched to the area were from Goroka, who will assist the company’s securities and policemen at Kumian camp to quell the situation.
It is understood the landowners are not happy with the takeover of the mine by Barrick Gold.
Insp Seine said the landowners feared that Barrick Gold might not honour the series of agreements in a memorandum of understanding they had in place with the former developer Highlands Pacific.
He said police would provide security for the employees at the mine to ensure that properties were safe.
Attempts to contact the management of Kainantu gold mine and Barrick Gold yesterday were unsuccessful.

Hotel loses 2,600 beer cartons
DAEWON Hotel in Wabag, Enga province, lost 2,600 cartoons of beer to villagers living in the Minamb valley near Wapenamanda.
The hotel claimed that about 20 villagers held up the driver of a semi-trailer truck carrying the beer on Wednesday afternoon as it was moving slowly up a hill after leaving Kukas village.
Daewon Hotel manager Ben Delatorre said the company lost more than K300,000.
He said there was no beer left after police arrived at the scene.
East West Transport operation supervisor John Wapi said the driver was held up after the villagers attacked the driver with stones.
He said the windscreen of the truck was smashed by the villagers. The driver was not hurt in the attack.
A reporter of The National witnessed a can of beer being sold for K1 and a carton for K10 in the area as he was travelling to Mt Hagen from Wabag.

Operation Stretim Sindaun launched
By SIONI RUMA
THE National Road Safety Council yesterday launched its combined motor traffic law enforcement operations Stretim Sindaun with the police, Motor Vehicles Insurance and Traffic Registry Services.
This combined operation is basically aimed to educate drivers, motor vehicle owners and pedestrians of their respective responsibilities in the ensuing months towards and prior to the Christmas celebrations throughout the country.
Road safety inspectors and police personnel have been on the roads conducting roadblocks and enforcing the Motor Traffic Act as of Wednesday and will continue till next Jan 4.
National Road Safety Council executive director Frank Aku revealed that about 3,000 people die every year as a result of careless and drunk driving, especially during the festive season.
He also revealed that un-roadworthy vehicles were a major cause of accidents in the past five years.
Mr Aku also stressed that his office would work together with its partners from other provinces and try to implement this operation nationally to apprehend and prosecute offenders through spot fines.

Failures worst example: Bart
The Opposition has described the failures uncovered in the Department of National Planning and Monitoring and the Office of Rural Development as the ‘worst example’ of PNG’s capacity problems.
Deputy Opposition leader Bart Philemon was responding to the Public Accounts Committee’s report that the evidence they saw indicated “no capacity to oversee or monitor contracts or projects and virtually no records, accounts or acquittal of these contracts, grants, programme monies or funding” by these two Government bodies.
The report tabled in Parliament highlighted, that the situation was so bad that the Auditor General could not ascertain whether hundreds of contracts funded under the development programmes or grants over the years have begun, are proceeding, have stopped, been terminated, been relocated, been lawfully tendered or allocated, been completed or even exist,” Mr Philemon said.
He said, “The grandstanding defensive political rhetoric by cabinet ministers must stop. They must wake up; knuckle down, get to work and earn their cabinet ministers’ stripes with some real sweat.
“Show us that you can do the job or be honourable enough to resign so that the real men could do the work,” he said.
He said the Prime Minister should act on the report and start cleaning these offices and appoint qualified and competent people to manage these funds, procurement process and monitor the outcomes and acquittals.

Coral Sea Hotel donates K60,000 to hospital
Coral Sea Hotels as a part of the community service donated K60,000 to the Mt Hagen General Hospital to operate a clinic inside the Mt Hagen city’s main market in the Western Highlands province last Thursday.
The clinic would provide health promotion and disease prevention programmes using written materials, audiovisual system and audio presentation.
Dr James Kintawa said he would use two nursing officers to manage the clinic and use some of the services of the St John Ambulance to do promotion and awareness. He said that initially the market would fund the operation of the clinic but for the start the market was unable to fund the operation of the clinic.
He said that after seeking help from various business houses to fund the operation Coral Sea Hotels came to their aid.
He said that the clinic would be open next week after some minor renovations are carried out.

Police in Rabaul, Kokopo get computers
By VERONICA MANUK
POLICE of Rabaul and Kokopo police stations yesterday received a timely donation from Wespack bank as an early Christmas present.
The bank donated three full sets of computers worth about K7,000.
Acting Kokopo police station commander, David Yapu said the donation was timely and would make job easier for police.
He said despite being in the computer age, most police stations were still using manual typewriters.
He said the computers would help police to keep proper data, figures and police reports.
The Westpac bank branch manager in Kokopo, Frank Turpat urged the police to look after the donated computers.
Wespack bank every year refurbished computers and donate used ones to charity organisations that have need for such equipment.
The Wespack respond immediately after a volunteer worker who was also a police reservist, Paul Schwarz assist police in writing to business houses for their kind assistance.
One computer set would be used by the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) in Rabaul and two for the prosecution section in Kokopo.

Santa drops in early at Maurin Hill kindy
Words and picture by KEVIN PAMBA
SANTA came two weeks early for this little schoolies at Maureen Hill Kindergarten School in Madang on Wednesday.
The arrival of Santa Claus with his bag full of presents for all the school children was part of the end of year concert and graduation at the school run by long-time Madang identity of New Zealand origin, Maureen Hill.
The children in various age groups ended their school year in style by putting on a stellar display of song, drama and art for their parents to see on the day.
The plays and singing included one based on the reason why the world celebrated Christmas - the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.
The fun-filled day was capped off with the arrival of Santa with the presents and light refreshments provided by the school.
Pictured on the left is Santa hugging, three year old Shania Tono of the “Liklik” class (two and three year olds) after giving her present.
She is surrounded by eager school-mates awaiting their turn to be called up by Santa.

Oro man acquitted
By PETER MIVA
THE National Court in Lae yesterday acquitted an Oro man for stealing K28,156 belonging to a family that has gold buying business in Wewak, East Sepik province.
John Oari, from Gona village, Popondetta in the Oro province, appeared before Lae resident judge Justice Sao Gabi.
Oari was charged with the alleged theft of the money belonging to Singut and Sons Ltd.
However, Justice Gabi found that the State was unable to submit credible evidence before the court in order to prosecute the accused and threw out the charge against him.
He noted that the key witness, Max Katuso, had left the country and the State was unable to bring him to court to give evidence.
The court heard that the accused allegedly committed the crime between Feb 24 and 26, 2004.
The court heard that the accused was alleged to have received some gold from the company managing director Ismael Singut to sell.
He had sold the gold on behalf of the company and paid K56,000 in cheque and K4,000 in cash to Singut and told him that an outstanding amount of K28,156 was to be paid after 21 days.
The court heard that the accused had failed to pay the outstanding amount and was subsequently arrested and charged under Section 372 of the Criminal Code Act.

Court orders Unitech to file defence
By JOSHUA ARLO
ACADEMIC staff of the Papua New Guinea University of Technology (Unitech) have obtained an interim injunction preventing the management from evicting them from their quarters.
Their lawyer, Copeland Raurela, applied to the National Court in Waigani for the injunction on Dec 10.
Mr Raurela told Justice Moses Jalina yesterday that some staff members had received termination notices and feared that they would be forcibly evicted.
The case related to a strike by some staff members last year.
Mr Raurela said it was agreed that no staff member would be terminated until their dispute was resolved.
“But now the defendants are taking action against the plaintiffs by sending them a notice of termination and they are in fear of their accommodation being forcibly taken away from them,” he said.
He asked the court to hear the matter ex parte but Justice Jalina said the defendants must be given the right to defend themselves.
He granted the order sought and directed that the university file its defence and for the matter to return to the court next Wednesday.

Evidence lacks credibility
A MAN charged with a sexual offence was freed by the National Court last Wednesday after it ruled that evidence by the victim and her mother lacked credibility.
Justice Panuel Mogish said the victim was five years old at the time of the alleged incident last year.
He said he had no doubt that the girl was coached by her mother into giving evidence against John Baragau.
As for the mother’s evidence, he said it was tainted with ulterior motives and appeared that she wanted to become Baragau’s wife. “I am not impressed with the State witnesses,” he said.
He found Baragau not guilty and discharged him. Baragau was alleged to have inserted his finger into the girl’s private part at his home on Feb 14.

Namatanai acquits ’07 grants
NAMATANAI became the second district in the New Guinea Islands to acquit its constitutional and development grants for this year after North Bougainville, which cleared its 2007 balance sheet three weeks ago. Exchanges of documents effecting the acquitals were presented by Namatanai MP Byron Chan to the director of the Office of Rural Develpoment Paul Sai’i yesterday. The acquittals pave the way for Mr Chan to access his 2008 grants early next year once he submits his five-year district development plan. The MP said his priority would be on health, education and road infrastructure projects, given the substantial amount of money the Government had allocated to districts. He thanked the Government for allocating K10 million for district developments.

SBDC to train exiting cops
SMALL Business Development Corporation (SBDC) will train police personnel, who are nearing retirement, on ways to start their own businesses or expand what they have. SBDC signed a memorandum of understanding with the Royal PNG Constabulary and Police Association in Port Moresby this week. It had a similar arrangement with the PNG Defence Force and the Correctional Services. Police Association general-secretary Clemence Kanau described the move as “a milestone in the history of the constabulary”. “We will be able to prepare exiting or retiring police members to start and manage their own small businesses after police life,” he said. Mr Kanau said the association would begin visiting various areas next week to explain the scheme to members.

MP warns public servants
LESS than half of the 132 public servants in Tari are performing their duties while the rest are roaming the streets of Mendi, Mt Hagen or Port Moresby, Tari MP James Marabe said. And he believed that this had been happening for the past three to four years. He warned that if they failed to return to duty immediately, they would be dismissed. He issued the warning during a district development plan meeting in Tari on Tuesday. Mr Marabe said that if Tari was to improve its image, it would require the dedication and cooperation of all the public servants. He said he had already allocated K100,000 from his electoral funds to Telikom PNG to upgrade the telecommunication services.

NGOs urged to fight violence
NEW Ireland government has encouraged non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders to assist in combating violence against women and children. Deputy Governor Derrol Maisi during the closing of the week-long workshop on domestic violence and child abuse, urged participants to combat violence against women and children in areas of education and move the community to greater awareness. Mr Maisi said violence and abuse were often not reported and challenged the participants to take the lead in educating and reporting these matters to the right authorities.