MARCH 6 2022
Prime Minister Hon. James Marape has urged the people of Papua New Guinea not to vote along tribal alliances or break the law by voting through bribery and illegal practices.
He said this when addressing the People’s Movement for Change dinner in Port Moresby on Saturday night.
“ Election is a serious matter and don’t abuse your constitutional Section 50 rights and vote recklessly,” PM Marape said.
“Every voter in our country must know that you have power to change the course of this country with the voting powers you have during vote.
“Use it wisely and vote for the best person available on merits to serve you people better, and not on money or tribal lines.
“If I am not, in your view, good to be Prime Minister, then you have good leaders like Governor Garry Juffa, and others who share Parliament in my coalition who fight for the country’s interests ahead of self.
“The Loloata camp loyalist like Juffa, Bird, Numu, Schnaubelt, Kua , Powi , Tongap, and the 52 who stayed back with me despite heavy politics is a positive signal that our country has matured in principle-based coalition. “
PM Marape urged the peope to vote wisely in the 2022 elections.
“We had in 2019 successfully took back PNG from the hands of corruption, nepotism , recklessness and abuse of power,“ he said.
“Papua New Guineans cannot go back to the past where inequality and non- lifting of poverty, especially of the rural population, existed.
“If the recent past government delivered, then our present poor development indicators would be better.
“ For instance, poor health facilities and systems allows for high infant and maternal mortalities,, amongst many other health issues that are prevalent in our country.
“Our rural areas largely remained unconnected by roads, ports, power lines, health and educational infrastructure.
“All these backdrops were the status quo when we took office in June 2019, including an economy that was fragile. and so broken down due to recklessness perpetuating from the office of the then Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.
“The economic mess and mismanagement created then are being cleared in our reconstruction of our budgetary and economic principles over the last two years.”
PM Marape said when his Government took office in 2019, “we realised that more offline debts like the K1.1 billion Motukea Port , the K3 billion UBS loan, the over K4 billion of unpaid State contracts like the Supreme Court House and Enga Hospital and Highlands highway counterpart fundings, to name a few, remained outstanding”.
“All these plus correct debt to GDP adjustments done under observation by IMF , ADB, and other creditable economic observers is establishing real debt at 40 per cent of GDP, instead of the 26 per cent former PM Peter Oniel claimed last week on Parliament.
“He also claimed that inflation was high but let me remind him his average inflation from 2011 to 2018 is 5.3 per cent, whilst in the last hard two years, we have averaged to only 4.3 per cent.
“I am happy to announce today that despite two hard years of 2020/2021, we have the highest foreign currency reserve in Central Bank then the low years from 2013 to 2018.
“ So Mr O’Neill should be the last person to talk about the economy when he, in good times, started the erosion of the strong economic foundations Somare left behind in 2011.
“To protect the country from abuse, we have passed the ICAC law and Whistle Blowers Act, are in the process of setting it up, and since then our perception ranking has dropped to 125 from what use to be above 150th place.
“We have also worked to get more from our resources, like our better agreements for Porgera and P’nyang – with above 50 per cent earnings for our country.
“Under tight and tough times , we have steadied the ship, and have taken PNG back from wrong hands and have put it back on the right road to recovery and growth and given opportunities for people all over our country instead of just one person or group of people.
“ So if you not happy with James Marape, then that’s fine, find new clean and committed leaders like Juffa and others instead of going back into the past.
“If past leaders had solutions, then our country would be fixed and developed by now, but sadly, we aren’t, so we must move forward by choosing new leadership combinations for continued progress of our nation.”
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