Address Jackson Airport incident

THE Jackson International Airport mayhem is a reality check and wake-up call for the Government.
No Government contracts and appointment to statutory boards and management get approved without Waigani’s sniff.
That means the person in the centre of the Jackson International Airport melee and the two security contractors in question were all put to play by Waigani.
At the end of the day, the buck will always stop with the Government.
We can never say the airport incident came so sudden or was an isolated case.
That’s because the alarm was so loud and clear enough to be certain that the matter was raised numerous times, let alone by reputable people with good international standing on the outright nepotism and blatant abuse of power in appointments.
One cannot downplay outspoken business leaders such as Peter Graham, the chairman and acting managing director of the Kumul Minerals Holdings Ltd (KMHL) and former managing director of Ok Tedi Mining Ltd and ExxonMobil PNG and Peter Aitsi, chairman and director of Kumul Consolidated Holdings Ltd, who resigned citing nepotism in corporate governance.
If incompetence by people who came through nepotism was the cause of all this, corporate governance across the statutory bodies will cave in and we will have management crises, corruption and all vices of bad management.
Apparently, that is certainly not a good start to “Take Back PNG”, making PNG the “Richest Black Christian Nation” or whatever goals we hope to achieve.

David Lepi