Malabag in Bali for public service meet

PNG’s largest public sector union president Michael Malabag left on Tuesday for the Indonesian tourist island of Bali for a four-day quality public service workshop.
Malabag, who heads the Public Employees Association (PEA), will meet with other public sector union colleagues from Europe, Pacific and Asia in Brisbane before travelling to Bali.
He said the world union bodies would share ideas in the view to reviewing quality public service campaign in
relation to funding of public service, privatisation, public service reforms and other
pressing issues such
as health care.
“Our regional campaign is putting public services at the heart of recovery so we fit into the global quality public service.”
Malabag said the meeting was very important as the PEA was
a stakeholder representing more than 70,000 public servants in the country.
Malabag, who is also PNG Trade Union Congress president, departed the Jackson International Airport claiming that PNG had nothing to celebrate on its 35th independence anniversary.
He said poverty level was high, there was high unemployment, life-saving machines were not available in hospitals, people were dying
from curable diseases, high number of mothers dying at child birth,
child deaths was high
and students throughout rural areas were still sitting on the ground with no desks in their classrooms.