Something fishy about building contractor

Letters

THERE is a Chinese company currently engaged by the Department of National Planning & Monitoring to renovate and extend the office spaces at the third floor of Vulupindi Haus, Waigani, where the department is housed.
The bizarre thing is that almost all of the workmen are Chinese nationals and none of them seem to understand or even speak English. They are using sign language to communicate with department staff.
The company has been doing renovation works since December 2016 and they have done only a quarter of the work. This has disrupted the department’s work and many staff are not tending to work because they are displaced from their work stations.
But what puzzles me is how can a KEY government department engage such a foreign company whose workmen can’t even speak or understand English at all.
Somebody at the Immigration Office or Labour Department has to personally visit the third floor Vulupindi Haus and see for themselves.
The good National Planning Minister Charles Abel, who is vocal against corruption and mismanagement, must do a visit to the Department and ask the senior management how this Chinese company was engaged in the first place and how its workmen were able to obtain their work visas in the first place as well.
The National Planning department designs national policies and plans for the country that calls for economic empowerment of PNG citizens however what it is doing now to give business to a foreign company with its non-national employees to do such a simple renovations  is a slap in the face of our citizens and seen as hypocrisy at its best.

Concerned, Via email