Bird calls on MPs to stick to the facts

By LUKE KAMA
EAST Sepik Governor Allan Bird says irresponsible use of data in Parliament by senior Cabinet ministers is
a serious concern.
He said Parliament was an important office where important legislations and decisions were made for the welfare of PNG’s eight million people and whatever debates and discussions or answers provided to questions from both side of the House must be based on facts.
“For instance, on the first day the prime minister said that one of the reasons his Cabinet got the UBS loan to help Oil Search was due to the fact that Oil Search was the largest private sector employer in our country.
“This statement is absolutely incorrect.
“The largest private sector employer in our country is New Britain Palm Oil Limited with 25,000 employees while Oil Search has less than 1500 employees,” Bird said.
He said there were other loose use of figures in Parliament which were not correct.
“Why is accuracy important for Parliament?” he said.
“If parliament is the final approval mechanism of the country then it is my very humble view that every effort and care must be taken to ensure that we are taking the best decision based on all the facts available to us.
“That is why accuracy of information, particularly numbers, are important in Parliament.”
He said leaders of government must make every effort to ensure that all their arguments in Parliament were accurate.
“We are running a country for eight million people and we can’t afford to make decisions based on faulty arguments because our people deserve better.”