Farmer heads games team

Sports

A FARMER from Butibam village just outside Lae, in Papua New Guinea, is the new chairman of the South Pacific Games Foundation. He is 45-year-old Bart Philemon who replaces Sir Anthony Siaguru, now in London as Deputy Secretary General of the Common wealth Secretariat.

The foundation which Philemon now leads was set up by an Act of Parliament to organise the hosting of next year’s South Pacific Games inPNG.. The games, to be played next September, have venues in both Port Moresby and Lae. It is expected to be the biggest South Pacific

Games.Philemon paid tribute to Sir Anthony for his work with the Foun dation, saying his leadership was “very very succcessful. We all give him credit for a job well done. Sir Anthony has done a tremendous job to prepare the country for the Games and was highly successful in getting things in place. Funding through sponsorship, and venues preparation have been most successful to date due to his leadership,” He said his biggest task is to ensure that the country is ready to host the 1991 Games as scheduled. Sponsor ship has brought in a lot of money. Says Philemon: “My job is to ensure that at the end of the day the whole exercise breaks even or stays in black. Large amounts of money is being raised and spent for the Games and we must ensure we do not make a loss.”

The new chairman lives in Lae, away from the base of most sponsors in the capital Port Moresby. This, he said, is no problem. He would simply make contact and stay in touch. Two of his major sponsors, however — Rice Industries and Rothmans are based in Lae.

Philemon was the chairman of the 1980 South Pacific Festival of Arts which PNG hosted. He was an Air Niugini executive.

He quit the airline in 1980 to go and farm.

He produces two tons of bananas each week which he sells in Lae and Port Moresby, and 100,000 chickens a year.

He is the chairman of the finance board of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and a director of the church’s business arm, Kambang Holdings. He is a member of the Lae Salvation Army Red Shield

Appeal Committee.

Two of his three children Benjamin, 11, and Sarah, 9, are in the PNG junior

swimming development squad. □

Games’ man: Philemon on the farm