Papua New Guinea — a country faced with a depressed economy and its public health system on the brink of total collapse due to the covid-19 pandemic sent a 62-member delegation to Europe to attend the COP26 Climate Change conference at a cost of a whooping K5.8 million (NZ$2.03 million).

The Post-Courier was told the initial budget for PNG’s participation in the climate change conference was put at K20 million for 82 people.

However, this was brought down to K5.8 million, but the National Executive Council approved only K3 million and reduced the number of delegates to 62 people.

Prime Minister James Marape stayed in PNG and appointed his Minister for Environment and Conservation, Wera Mori, to head the delegation to Glasgow.

Mori, when contacted by this newspaper to justify the cost, referred us to the NEC.

Apart from Mori, other MPs on the trip are Oro Governor Gary Juffa, Member for Moresby North West Lohia Boe Samuel, Member for Talasea Francis Maneke, Vice-Minister for Works and Member for Anglimp-South Waghi Joe Kuli, Member for Kairiku-Hiri Peter Isoaimo and Member for Rai Coast Peter Sapia.

The money was spent on airfares, accomondation and allowances and the delegation requested from the Finance Department in total K800,000 for airfares and K620,000 for accommodation for 10 nights.

Furthermore, travel allowances for the special envoy, the six other MPs with their officers was at US$500 to US$600 per day and at today’s exchange rate, this works out to about K2500 to K3000 a day.

Travel allowance rates
For the public servants, the current rate for travel allowance is at US$300 (K1500) per day and accommodation between US$200 – US$250 (K600 – K1250) per day, depending on the rate charged by the hotels they are booked in to stay.

According to our findings, the actual cost of the trip would have been K1.32 million.

The delegates travelled in three groups and the round trip — Port Moresby, Singapore, Doha and Glasgow — and back cost K19,000 on business class for the envoy and the MPs and K12,980 for the others on economy class.

The Post-Courier was told the first 20 travelled on PX 009 on October 23, the next 20 on the 24th and the rest on the 25th.

Attempts to get the full list of the delegation as well as an official response on the exorbitant cost from the Prime Minister’s office and the departments of Finance, and Foreign Affairs and Office of Environment and Climate Change were unsuccessful.

PNG’s Kundu London High Commissioner was also sent questions relating to PNG’s participation and the costs, but this newspaper was advised all media responses must be channelled through the Foreign Affairs Secretary Elias Wohengu.

This is the second international conference on Climate Change PNG has participated in as a country.

‘Corruption at its best’
After the COP15 conference held in Paris, France, in 2015, the then Environment Minister, Sir John Pundari, went public and condemned the conduct of some members of the government delegation to that conference.

In his criticism, Sir John particularly talked about the attendance of members of the delegation, noting that some went missing, others turned up late while others left early for home.

At that time, Sir John said he was very disappointed that even his fellow ministers who were part of the government delegation quickly disappeared.

He said then that “getting airline tickets and allowances to attend international meetings, and to show up for a day or two, then spend the rest of the time in other places was corruption at its best, and must never be encouraged”.

Over the last two weeks, the Post-Courier asked Sir John twice to comment on the COP26 trip but he referred the newspaper to the Prime Minister’s office instead.

By PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Cook Island businesses holding out for much needed tourists have now got a reprieve with a travel bubble with New Zealand less than two weeks away.

It will start on May 17, with Air New Zealand offering flights from May 18.

During yesterday’s announcement, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said there had been enormous sacrifices made to keep covid-19 out and communities safe.

“Our economy has been devastated, today we start our journey of recovery. Today, we get back into business and today, we start to rebuild,” he said.

Cook Islands Tourism Industry Council president Liana Scott said the bubble announcement was a relief as the wait had been dire for many businesses and financial support from the government due to run out next month.

“Some of them have mentioned to me, if it takes longer than May, they don’t think they can hang in any longer,” she said.

“We have been lucky enough to have the government support through a wage subsidy and, without that, business would not have been able to continue.”

Businesses begin preparations
Scott said businesses had already begun to prepare for overseas guests.

“Some properties have been in hibernation, so they have been closed completely and I’ve already seen on Facebook they’ve been having staff doing some rotational shifts, getting into the rooms, servicing aircons and those sorts of things,” she said.

She said some hotels have even been making their own jam while they waited for shipments of individual breakfast spreads to come in for guests

But she said some business had lost workers to New Zealand as the wage subsidy was only enough to survive on let alone pay the mortgage and other bills.

When the one way bubble was announced in January, 304 Cook Island residents left either for a short term stay or permanently.

“A lot of that young working population has moved to New Zealand to do some seasonal and permanent roles and I think filling those roles will be quite difficult,” she said.

Three flights a week
Once the bubble is up and running Air New Zealand will fly to the Cook Islands two or three times a week.

The airline expects to step that up to daily from July in time for the school holidays.

However, National Party leader Judith Collins said the government had not been moving fast enough to reconnect with other Pacific countries.

“The fact is these countries have almost no other income other than remittances, it is simply deplorable that the government has not moved faster on this.

“It shouldn’t be hard when there’s no cases in these other countries,” she said.

In the past, Samoa’s Prime Minster has been reluctant to open up the borders following the measles outbreak and Tonga’s Prime Minister has said a vaccination programme needs to be done first.

Nuie’s Premier Dalton Tagelagi is waiting to see how successful the Cook Islands bubble is before lobbying for one of its own.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it makes the most sense for realm countries to be the next countries in line for a bubble, but the decision is “in the hands of those countries.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Perth in Australia was plunged into a three-day lockdown after community transmission was linked to a returnee from India.

Fiji finds itself in similar situation due to a returnee, also from India.

Australian officials say overseas travel is allowed only for “the most profound humanitarian or compassionate reasons, under strictest of circumstances”.

What about Fiji? Under what circumstances is overseas travel allowed? Under what circumstances was the India returnee allowed to travel in the first place – do citizens have a right to know?

Australia has recognised the risks and effectively banned international travel, even though thousands of Australians will be unable to return home for now.

What is the Fiji response to international travel in light of the latest infections from abroad with 12 new cases yesterday? Are we tightening things up or not? The citizens need to know what the government is doing.

Reports indicate Australia adopted varying responses with regards to high-risk countries, including North America and Europe.

Tightening up
Given the crisis in India, Australia has taken steps to further tighten departures after it was found people were travelling for weddings, funerals and sports.

Critics have condemned the Australian government for what they see as its laxity, and for risking lives and dealing a potential blow to the economy.

What about Fiji? On what grounds are people travelling? Were people allowed to travel for weddings, religious reasons and for funerals? We need answers.

How big a risk is it to us as a nation to allow return travel from hot spots like India and the US?

In light of the new cases, have the international travel guidelines been changed or are they still the same?

Dr Shailendra Singh is senior lecturer and coordinator of the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific. This comment is from Dr Singh’s social media posts and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz