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Longtime PNG businessman, driver glad to be alive

By Peter Miva

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (The National, March 31, 2008) - New Zealander Barry Fell thought his captors had come back to kill him when he heard a knock on the door at 2:30 a.m. last Wednesday.

He struggled to sit up from his fitful sleep, terrified that in the bush hut of a hamlet nestled between two steep slopes in Wara Bena, Asaro, Eastern Highlands Province, he’d never see the light of day.

He and his driver Simeon Gase had already missed seeing sunshine since Good Friday in Lae. Another four days of captivity more than 300 km from their Lae home, without fresh air in a smoke-filled hut and freezing environment, had worsened their mental torment.

They’d been taken from Waratahs Sports Club in Lae that Friday afternoon and driven in their utility van to Ramu Sugar for refueling and then back onto the Okuk Highway past Goroka to Asaro.

They left the highway and drove...

Challenge to license quashed

By Clifford Faiparik

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (The National, March 31, 2008) - Digicel will now operate on a mobile phone license after the Supreme Court quashed Telikom’s appeal against the granting of its license in Port Moresby last Friday.

The Waigani Supreme Court in a 69-page ruling handed down by Justice David Cannings has upheld the National Court’s decision to squash Telikom’s appeal against the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission’s (ICCC) decision.

ICCC had decided last March 27 to grant a mobile phone license to Digicel.

Judge Cannings handed down the decision on behalf of Deputy Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injina and Justice Nicholas Kirriwom.

Telikom was still aggrieved at ICCC’s decision to grant two new public mobile licenses and commenced last December 22 legal proceedings against the ICCC, seeking judicial review on ICCC’s decision.

Telikom had appealed to the Supreme Court...

Vice Chancellor says pleas fall on deaf ears

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (PNG Post-Courier, March 31, 2008) - The failure by the Government to provide [adequate] funding for the Papua New Guinea University of Technology brought about the present state of affairs on the Taraka campus in Lae, Morobe Province, according to Vice chancellor Misty Baloiloi

Baloiloi said the infrastructure, equipment and materials, rising debts and academic activities suffered due to the under funding in the past five years.

"In here, they call me the VC but when I go down to Waigani, I am a little boy and a beggar," he said. "I get down on my knees and beg and beg but no one would listen to me," Baloiloi told a press conference.

He said the university had "made submission after submission" to the Government as well as seeking donor funding to deal with some of the problems but all these efforts were not supported by the Government.

He said the university had set a...

Sells investment holdings to pay retiree claims

By Agnes Donato

SAIPAN, CNMI (Saipan Tribune, April 1, 2008) – The Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund has liquidated nearly US$70 million in assets to pay retiree benefits as of February 2008.

By Sept. 30, 2008, the pension program will have withdrawn US$122 million of assets. This includes US$45 million for fiscal year 2008 alone.

Oscar Camacho, vice chairman of the Fund board of trustees, said the retirement agency was "forced" to liquidate the assets from its investments in order to meet monthly pension obligations.

The CNMI government has not remitted any contribution to the Fund since March 2006.

"These drawdowns of the Fund's investment does not just diminish the Fund's assets held in trust on behalf of Fund members, current retirees as well as current government employees, it will significantly impair the Fund's ability to ensure the last person who retires under the Defined...