PM’s trips to Singapore suspicious: Opposition

OPPOSITION Leader Douglas Tomuriesa is suspicious over Prime Minister James Marape’s repeated trips to Singapore for talks with corporate executives in less than three weeks.
Marape was set to return from Singapore yesterday with a small delegation after meeting with executives of TotalEnergies to discuss matters related to the Papua LNG project.
Tomuriesa said: “Marape continues to travel to Singapore on weekend getaways to have meetings with executives of multi-billion-dollar companies in luxury hotels, with very tight-knit delegations and close associates.
“Why is Marape continuously travelling to Singapore when these executives can easily get on their company jets and fly into Port Moresby for meetings?
“The Government is acting as if these millionaire executives cannot fly all the way to Port Moresby, and we need to meet them in the middle for meetings.
“As far as the Opposition is concerned, these trips are for commercial meetings, not peace talks that require us to travel to a neutral country such as Singapore.
“From information we are receiving, the meeting with TotalEnergies executives lasted for only a couple of hours but, yet, the Prime Minister and his entourage were away for four days.
“Additionally, we are living in the 21st Century, where meetings can easily be organised through virtual means instead of spending hundreds of thousands on business class plane tickets, or the Falcon jet charter costs, hotel accommodation and allowances.
“And, again, we see the Prime Minister continuously budge in and spearhead simple meetings that his ministers and department heads can attend to.
“It is embarrassing for the country when Singaporean hotel staff are seeing our PM more than our people do – it appears Singapore is the new Waigani.”
Marape could not be reached for comments yesterday.
However, he said in a statement last Saturday (April 6) that he travelled to meet with TotalEnergies chief executive officer Patrick Pouyanne to get first-hand information directly from Pouyanne on the progress of the Papua LNG project.