Polye’s claims are baseless

WAS Opposition Leader Don Polye serious or just bluffing when he told Parliament last Friday that he would cancel Apec 2018 if he became Prime Minister after the general elections next year?
It is fair to say that many Papua New Guineans are hardly convinced that Polye will be in the position to call the shots after the June elections.
Firstly, Polye has to retain his Kandep seat, whose 2012 election results are still being dragged through the courts, and secondly, his Triumph Heritage Empowerment (THE) Party needs to win enough seats to be invited to form the next government.
Polye is likely to win the battle for Kandep but more than likely to lose the war for government.
As it is, THE Party will need more than a miracle to win the elections to form the next government and make their leader Prime Minister.
The current political scenario suggests that the Opposition Leader’s threat is baseless and makes a mockery of Papua New Guinea’s standing as one of the fastest growing economies, not only in the Asia Pacific region but throughout the world.
Moreover, it is unbecoming of a national leader like Polye to make such a brash statement that could have serious implications for PNG’s trade and bilateral relations with its Apec members.
Polye told Parliament that the country’s financial situation did not warrant its hosting of Apec 2018.
“The Opposition is of the firm belief that we are primarily mandated to serve our people.
“When our people have a problem, like now, we have to bite the bullet and make tough decisions for the interest of our people and not for egotism or big name on the international community. The international community can understand (cancelling Apec2018) and they’ll accept it.”
We agree with Prime Minister O’Neill that Apec is not only hosted by the big economies. For example, smaller economies such as Brunei and New Zealand held very successful Apec  events in the past.
“These countries did not spend billions of dollars to host Apec , but they hosted Apec  in ways that were fitting with their capacity,” O’Neill said in his response.
The Opposition Leader claims that Apec  2018 will cost K600 million but the Prime Minister says the Government will set aside K250 million for items related to Apec and most of that is to improve the capacity of government agencies and officials.
“We are increasing the training of our police, our military and our border security, but this is capacity building that should have been undertaken decades ago.”
We also agree with O’Neill that Polye is “either ignorant or deceptive” in understanding what is involved with hosting Apec  and the benefits it will deliver for the nation.
“The Opposition Leader still says Apec is just one meeting. He has no idea of the potentially two hundred meetings and workshops that will take place in our country to advance sectors such as transportation, agriculture, tourism and mining.
“Up to ten thousand businessmen and women, delegates and other officials will be coming to Papua New Guinea and they will bring investment and capacity building.”
Polye is also assuming that the Government will K600 million to host Apec  2018 “at the cost of people’s lives’. “It’s going to kill us.”
It seems the Opposition Leader has based his projection on an International Monetary Fund analysis that included building a new airport, a new convention centre, a new sea port and new hotels.
As the Prime Minister clarified, that projection is not accurate because even if a new airport was built, this would not be for Apec but would be because of increasing passenger demand throughout the country.
Polye’s baseless claims and assumptions make him sound more and more like US presidential candidate Donald
Trump.
Last year, Polye also opposed the hosting of the 2015 Pacific Games in Port Moresby, saying it would fail and that the sporting venues were not safe.
He was proved totally wrong following the biggest and most successful Pacific Games.
Now, with similar claims about Apec 2018, the Opposition Leader is indeed becoming a laughing stock among fellow citizens as well as the international community.