Don’t pass fake news: Pomaleu

The National Main Stories

CHAIRMAN of the Inter-Departmental Election Committee (IDEC) Ivan Pomaleu has urged the public not to circulate malicious rumours that may affect the operations of the joint security forces throughout the country during General Election 2022 (GE22).
Pomaleu said this after disinformation circulated on social media concerning a private meeting between Prime Minister James Marape, the Papua New Guinea Defence (PNGDF) Force and police.
“This is a serious allegation and can land someone in court for spreading such fake news on social media,” Pomelau, who is secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and National Executive Council, said.
He called on Papua New Guineans to assess what they read on social media and form balanced views and determine whether they were being misled or manipulated by the messages.
Pomaleu urged the public to be good rational thinkers in the community and to be better judges of information, adding, this could assist with differentiating between accurate information and fake news.
“I further appeal to our young and educated Papua New Guineans to refrain from sharing fake news online, and especially on social media networks, and to be more responsible in their actions to avoid being penalised under our cyber law.
“We are also using all means to track the source of this fake news to either take down the page and or penalise the perpetrators,” Pomaleu said.

Next govt urged to ensure quality education

QUALITY education must remain a priority for the successive governments formed after the General Election 2022 (GE22), a Morobe education official says.
Finschhafen district education manager Simon Shong said the last term was challenging for administrators trying to ensure quality was maintained.
He said the government’s Tuition Fee Free policy had not assured quality as expected and instead had posed more challenges.
“We experienced cuts in our funding and we were left with the challenging task of getting parents to pay a parental component.”

MPs primary role is to legislate, academic says

By KELVIN JOE
AN academic is encouraging people to vote for candidates who listen and communicate effectively.
National Research Institute (NRI) research fellow Dr Thomas Webster said with polling to begin on July 2, voters needed to choose candidates who would make good parliamentarians.
“We need to choose people who are recipient to listen, sit down and communicate well with the community because these are their main function as a Member of Parliament,” he said.
Webster made the remarks on FM100’s talkback show last Thursday.
He said people should not elect the sort of people that gave out money and promised but instead those that would listen to them and identify their needs.
He said a parliamentarian’s main role was to pass laws, debate issues, have discussions of national interest, consult their constituents and take their concerns to parliament to create appropriate policies.
“The roles of MPs is to elect an executive government to run the country,” he said.
“Parliament must make sure that the executive arm does the things people want them to do, implement and pass the laws, approve budgets, and deliver goods and services,” he said.
“These are done through the Parliament body along with parliamentary committees such as the public accounts committee.
“Through this committee it will hold the executive government accountable to implement plans according to the wishes of Parliament – which are people’s wishes.”
Meanwhile, Webster said MPs were also put in difficult positions because of the people’s expectation to for money, favours and other benefits.
He said district services improvement programme funding allocated to all districts (electorates) had encouraged this type of attitude and mentality.
He said as such MPs were driven by their electorates to spend more time on roads and bridges, and on schools and health facilities among others.

Province set for polling

THE common roll for West New Britain has been updated and the province is ready for polling, West New Britain (WNB) election manager Emily Kelton says.
Emily, in her General Election 2022 (GE22) update, said 118 polling teams were ready for polling. The electorates are Kandrian-Gloucester, Talasea, Nakanai and WNB regional.
She said the WNB government had given K1 million to help run GE22 apart from funding from the Electoral Commission.
Emily said there were no election-related offences or disturbances during the campaigning period, all candidates were conducting their campaigns peacefully.
“We have not received any reports of such election-related offences so far since nomination and now we are into the campaigning period,” she said.

Esa’ala welcomes PM … The children of remote Esa’ala Station on Normanby Island, Milne Bay, stood in pouring rain to sing the National Anthem and recite the National Pledge for Prime Minister James Marape yesterday. It was a scene which touched Marape, who was at Esa’ala to campaign for his Pangu Pati candidate Jimmy Maladina, and Milne Bay regional candidate Jennifer Rudd. “To see our young children standing in the rain and singing our National Anthem, and reciting the National Pledge, breaks my heart into pieces. It is really for them that I am here to campaign. You (people of Esa’ala) have the opportunity (through voting) to construct something better for the little children who sang the National Anthem this (yesterday) morning.”