people

Cover Story

Rise of

power threatens Skate government

THE unstable Papua New Guinea government of prime minister Bill skate is facing a new threat - the rise of ‘people power’ through the trade union movement.

Other existing threats - such as a looming vote of no confidence being sponsored by the Opposition and possible military inter vention - appear less pressing or very unlike ly, although not completely ruled out.

Unless there is a massive defection of government members of parliament before July 13 this year when the Opposition can test the government’s strength. Skate appeared safe as of early December.

An 18 month grace period expires this month, however, the government prevented the opposition from moving any vote by extending the parliament session from December 3 to July 13.

The government also appears safe from any military threat after it re-instated former Defence Force commander Brigadier General Jerry Singirok.

Singirok is closely associated with PM Skate. The government removed former commander Brigadier General Leo Nuia whom Skate blamed for lack of co-operation with the government.

But while these things may have been rel atively within his control, Skate now faces his biggest threat - the people themselves. As

By Sam Vulum

far as the government is concerned, the threat to their survival comes from the trade unionists who joined forces with the oppo sition to oppose the budget.

The unions appear to have widespread

support, receiving heavy backing in the

media. Women’s groups, youths and other members of the general public marched with trade unionists to parliament in November.

The level of dissatisfaction with the gov ernment, in particular PM Skate, seems quite extensive. Certainly those who marched were not at all happy with his per formance.

When Skate addressed the protesters

outside parliament house, they interjectedly

booed him down several times while he tried to calm them, and they booed even louder when he left.

Several politicians, including Skate also felt the pinch of the public’s anti-govern ment behaviour when they were prevented from using the services of the national air line, Air Niugini, during the height of the union strike.

The first two victims were two cabinet ministers, Vincent Auali and Jimson Sauk, who were asked to leave a plane. It is under stood that the striking airline workers also prevented several politicians, bound for a Sydney mining conference in November,

from leaving.

Among them were PM Skate, his deputy lairo Lasaro, lan Ling-Stuckey (Commerce), Sir John Kaputin, Peter Waieng (Defence) and Roy Yaki (Foreign Affairs and Trade).

However, Air Niugini’s general manager Chris Mek denied that Skate was off loaded.

Mek said that only other government offi cials were asked to disembark before the flights left.

Skate has expressed disappointment that Air Niugini could treat the government of the day in that manner.

He said it was his government that had injected K5O million to bail out the airline and he would conduct an investigation into the blacklisting of MPs.

About the same time, it was reported that Defence Minster Peter Waieng was alleged to have flown to Goroka in a Defence

Iroquois helicopter after trying unsuccess

fully to get on the usual commercial flights.

Though this could not be confirmed independently, sources said minister Waieng was forced to take that option

because striking Air Niugini employees had black-banned all politicians on the airline services.

Sources estimated the overhead costs, to fly the chopper to Goroka and back to Port Moresby, to be about K 16,000.

The people’s power in Papua New Guinea was tested for the first time during the Sandline Crisis. Although it was only a minority group, backed by soldiers from the PNG Defence Force, they were effective in forcing the former prime minister sir Julius Chan to step down.

The situation was quite similar in November/December 1998, except that there were no soldiers, just a large number of people including nation-wide union members.

The union’s uprising laid bare the peo ple’s growing frustrations and anger over the government’s conduct since taking office in the 1997 elections.

The government has been plagued with controversy, and now, it seems, Papua New Guineans are getting quite fed up. What’s more, the people seem to be backing the opposition over some of the government’s alleged sinister and questionable activities.

The feeling amongst the people was vividly described by shadow Treasury and corporate Affairs minister Bart Philemon when replying to the budget.

“Over the last 16 months, the opposition together with a great majority of Papua New Guineans had to put up with this govern ment, sometimes under the most agonising circumstances.

“There are questions and allegations of corruption over the Skate/Sefa tapes, which are still outstanding. There are also out standing questions over senior members of Skate’s party being involved in producing pornographic video tapes.

“There has also been frequent sacking of departmental heads thereby eroding the independence of the bureaucracy.

There are constant changes in the heads of statutory bodies and questionable appointments of political cronies. There are questions over constant changes of minis ters and deputy prime ministers.

“Out patience is fast running out.

Enough is enough. The 1999 budget is the last straw left for this government. This budget is bringing the matter to a head.

“How much longer are we prepared to put up with this government which lacks economic management experience and

hence depends completely on an expensive and controversial K 7 million foreign eco nomic advisor and technical advise,” he said.

It is this expansive K 7 million contract for the economic advisor Dr Hamidian-Rad and other lavish spending exercises, includ ing a recent holiday trip by several MPs to Cairns, Australia, that troubles the people most.

What many could not understand was that while the government is introducing cost-cutting measures, it also continues to spend extravagantly.

The 7000 public servants who are direct ly affected, most of whom are union mem bers, do not accept that while depriving them of paid jobs, the government can also afford to allocate K 54 million to MPs under a district support grant.

The funds will be left to the discretion of MPs to decide how they are used in a sys tem that was abolished in the past because of gross misuse by MPs.

Those set to be retrenched will join a pool of a rising number of unemployed in the country. Employment creation in PNG since 1996 has been dismal. The country has created less than 80,000 jobs over the last 30 years. On average, it has created roughly around 2,600 jobs per annum.

This is quite alarming as current esti mates from the education department show that 50,000 people are pouring out of the school system every year.

The mounting pressure on the govern ment in December subsided after the unions agreed to return to work and parliament pre maturely adjourned to July.

As expected, the government has again used the numbers tactic to skip two 1999

parliamentary sittings, beginning the 1999

session in July.

The January and March sittings have been skipped, in a move seen as a desperate tactic to give the government enough time to prepare for the looming no-confidence vote.

The government has argued that it will use the holiday period to sell the budget to

the people.

However, the time lapse also provides the opportunity for the opposition to lobby support. The unions would also be expect ing some direct answers to their demands in July.

There are expected to be some interest ing developments in the session in July. ■