Marape vs O’Neill

PRIME Minister James Marape has asked People’s National Congress (PNC) leader and former PM Peter O’Neill what he has done for Lae and Papua New Guinea during his eight years (2011-2019) in office.
He issued the challenge while addressing Pangu Pati supporters in Lae on Friday (May 27) when launching the 2022 General Election campaign of Lae MP and Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso.
Marape dared O’Neill to take him on in a live public debate to show what he had done during his eight-year term.
Marape said he was willing to debate the former prime minister (O’Neill) at either University of PNG or University of Technology.
“I will bring my three years to the table, O’Neill will bring any three years to his table, where we will talk about inflation, loans and what we have achieved.”
Marape asked for PNC to show what they have done for Lae city and the rest of the country over the last eight years.
“You may have done something in Port Moresby but not in many parts of the country.”
Marape said in his three years as Prime Minister, inflation was under 5.5 per cent; over eight years, O’Neill’s inflation was at six to seven per cent.
“Over eight years, he has not given you any tax rebate or support.”
Marape said his Government was now subsidising fuel prices, and over the next month, prices would start dropping.
He said 10 per cent goods and services tax (GST) on basic items such as soap, rice, tinned fish and cooking oil would be done away with.
Marape said low wage earners of K17,500 annually and below would have their income tax done away with.
In response O’Neill said Marape “is simply lost and looking for things to say”.
He added that Pangu Pati had no policies and therefore had nothing to debate.
O’Neill said: “We (PNC Government) have transformed Lae pothole-city into a cement road city using our local know how to ensure we built roads that can withstand the heavy rainfall in the city.
“We built a world class port, the four-lane highway to Nadzab Airport, upgrade and construct Angau Hospital and approved the construction of new Nadzab Airport upgrade.
“The PNC’s Tuition Fee Free education policy ensured that all children in Lae were able to have the right to attend school.
“A large part of the PNC strategy was to support mega projects such as the multi-million Kina Wafi-Golpu mine project and Porgera gold mine to grow the number of people employed.
“We achieved 99.6 per cent reliability of power supply in Lae and the Ramu Grid in March 2019 delivering what the community in Lae demanded of us.
“He (Marape) should meet with the closed small business owners in Lae who he forced into bankruptcy and in doing so, he has made many hardworking people, unemployed with his mismanagement of the economy.
“He shut down the operating Porgera mine in Enga causing the loss of thousands of jobs and businesses closing down and costing the economy as a whole, a whopping K9.3 billion.”