Time for blame game is over

ONE more first term MP is joining the growing chorus in calling the government to be responsible and stop the blame game.
In a press release titled ‘Treasurer Must Cease Blame Game and Focus On Addressing Livelihood Issues Affecting the Country’, Member for Bulolo Sam Basil Jr threw down the gauntlet and told the Government that the time for blame game and half measure is over.
Son of the former member for Bulolo and a firebrand politician who revived Pangu Party, the late Sam Basil Snr, young Basil is a chip of the old block who doesn’t mince tells Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey in his face that he is not here to hear political rhetoric’s and grandstanding.
Nobody wants to hear or cares about Ling-Stuckey’s obsession to the former prime minister Peter O’Neill and his continued statistics to prove the other wrong.
His statement begins with the line: “The statement by the Treasurer is an insult to the people of PNG when we are trying to understand the impact of the very people he seems to be helping that are turning around in our societies.”
Basil Jr is the leader of the United Labour Party and matters industrial are very close to his heart.
While he does not condone what transpired thereafter when the police union expressed their member’s grievances on Jan 10 over tax hike he stressed the need for genuine dialogue amongst parties concerned and appealed to the labour force to take their grievances through the mechanisms managed by the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations.
This bold stand by the young politicians demonstrate that the people’s house, the National Parliament, does not belong to the patronising of the potbellied Party Leaders and their pork barrel politics – refers to national government politicians spending huge amounts of money.
This is the time for the backbenchers, first termers and often the trodden over to rise up and shine.
Stand up and be counted. You are equally mandated just as the party leaders and so-called big boys who have been in and around politics.

David Lepi