No extra fees for travellers

By LULU MARK
THERE is no requirement for people travelling into and out of the country to pay extra fees, says Dr Daoni Esorom.
He is the Covid-19 National Control Centre (NCC) incident manager.
He was responding to a report that a private company recently told travellers, who had already paid K4,600 to travel to Malaysia, to pay an extra K700.
The company collecting the fee described it as a payment for a tracking app while a separate advisory to the travellers referred to it as “charges”.
Dr Esorom told The National that there were no third-party arrangements or contracts between the centre and organisations or agents for an approval to travel in and out of the country.
“The NCC is just a coordinating centre. It does not have a financial system and the funds are actually managed by the agencies or Government departments. So we don’t collect any money,” he said.
“Any contract NCC enters into has to be approved by the respective departments. For example, health service providers will need to have a contract with the Health Department to provide the service identified.
“There is a travel desk at NCC that look after all the travel approvals.
“We have not outsourced that.
“This travel desk is managed by staff from the departments of transport, health, foreign affairs and trade, police, PNG Immigration and Citizenship Authority, United Nations Development Programme, Business Council of PNG, Air Niugini and other airlines.
“The online travel application form is accessed via [email protected] through our travel desk.
“There is no rational for charging people to travel and most importantly it is not provided in the Pandemic Act nor in the measures.”