Papua New Guinea’s premier educational institutions – our universities - are dying a death of a thousand cuts under the O’Neill regime, former Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta said today. Funding for UPNG, Unitech and the University of Goroka has been cut by almost 27 percent in real terms this year, according to the 2017 Budget papers. “Not content with his free education fraud and savage cuts to the general education budget, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill is also attacking t

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s free education policy is a fraud that is crushing the hopes and dreams of schoolchildren all over the country. “Analysis of Education Department statistics prove that the funding allocated to TFF is manifestly inadequate in the first place, and some of the funding is being diverted to non-TFF activities,” former Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta said today. “When Mr O’Neill boasts about his policy, he is knowingly misleading the public. We shoul

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill should not be making boastful statements, as he did this week, about his failed free education policy. He should be apologising to the nation’s children instead, and telling us how he plans to arrest the further deterioration of the system. The waste, mismanagement and corruption in his Tuition Fee Free policy, coupled with his uncaring and irresponsible spending cuts over the past few years, have brought the education system to its knees. “Since

The latest data released by the Bank of Papua New Guinea shows that the central bank has been printing money for the government, fuelling its wasteful spending. “The central bank has irresponsibly financed the Budget deficit, covered up and facilitated Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s waste and mismanagement,” former Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta said today. “It has contributed to the growing mountain of public debt created by Mr O’Neill – in other words the central bank ha

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s boast that he will increase national debt will burden all Papua New Guineans by committing future income to high interest payments, reducing the amount available for health, education and transport. “A primary cause of the woes Papua New Guinea is currently experiencing is Mr O’Neill’s gross mismanagement of the economy and public finances, including imprudent borrowing,” Sir Mekere said. “His stated intention to increase borrowing if he is re-e

Former Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta said today he was shocked to read in The National of 2 June that Mr Martin Poh of Borneo Pacific Pharmaceuticals had publicly celebrated an apparent knighthood before the award had been announced by Buckingham Palace or the Office of the Papua New Guinea Governor-General. The article was headlined: ‘Kidney Foundation Star to be Knighted’. Sir Mekere said: “Every rule of Palace and Government protocol has been broken here. It just goes