‘Phone a curse’

By JEFFREY ELAPA
NORTH Waghi MP Benjamin Mul phone costs only K200 on the streets, he claims, but it is responsible for payments of well over K20,000 a month.
Mul, who is chairman of the Jiwaka Transitional Authority, said the mobile phone had become every member’s bane, “a curse if you will”.
“There are a 100,000 people in there,” he said, tapping his phone.
“They can call me from everywhere – in the bush, in their homes, on the road side. A few times they called to invite me to a party or to apologise for breaking my windscreen. Everyone calls to ask for help.
“If there is a death, I am the first to know. If there is a bride price, I know before the woman’s people. If there is a compensation payment, I must be the first to know. I must know of school fee problems.
“They all talk to me over the mobile phone.”
Mul said it was not like asking for help openly in front of people when people could be shy.
“A mobile phone enables a person to say whatever he wants in secrecy so that they can say anything they please.
“The mobile phone is now becoming a liability and a concern for many politicians,” he said, adding there was no protocol and appointment system and use of office secretaries as in the  past.
Mul said on average, he spent about K10,000 to K20,000 a month to help people who called .