Maritime teachers, students await response

By JAYNE SAFIHAO
SACKED lecturers and students from the Maritime College are still waiting for Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to respond to a petition given to him three weeks ago.
With classes still suspended, the sacked employees and students want O’Neill to appoint a task force to investigate the Madang-based college’s administration.
The petition by the student body alleged malpractices and maladministration of school funds by the administration manager and asked for his removal.
The petition was signed by 14 students and stakeholders’ representatives who questioned the hiring of a female staff member in the student services section and her mother as a cook.
The students presented the petition to the school administration hoping that the manager would be removed. But the college’s board did not make any decision at a meeting in Madang last month.
A public notice by school acting chairperson Roslyn Morauta on June 29, claimed the issue had been resolved.
But lecturer Capt Justin Tono, who is one of the three sacked, said the public notice “is half-truths”.
He said the decision to close the college was not made in  consultation with all industry sponsors.
Representing the industry, Steamships Shipping’s Andy Cummings said he unaware of the latest decisions by the college.
Tono said the joint executive council was an illegal entity, set up by the interim school management immediately after the exit of former principal Richard Coleman.
 “Those of us who had presented the petition to Peter O’Neill during his campaign in Madang have been terminated along with students involved,” Tono said.
“We are fighting for our rights. We have not violated nor damaged any college building during the stand-off except to weld the grilled doors.
“If they want to terminate us, they had better have good grounds as we have taken legal advice on this.”
The sacked lecturers are senior maths teacher Joe Ariwange, who has spent 17 years with the college, Brian Singiat, a senior lecturer and an assimilator specialist and Tono.
The Students Representative Council head and his deputy were driven out.
“O’Neill has to come to our aid and send a special task force to investigate the conduct of the school administration as we are concerned about the school,” Tono said.