By ORCHY REX
UPNG Journalism Student
SOUTHERN Highlands Governor, William Powi broke silence to speak up for the silent majority of the citizens of Papua New Guinea on the floor of parliament last Tuesday by questioning the government.
During the first day sitting of the 2023 parliament, Governor Powi who was very instrumental in forming the Marape-Rosso Government appeared to be disturbed by the ongoing saga between Puma Energy and the Central Bank.
And when the Deputy Speaker opened up questions without notice, he stood up and directed series of questions to Prime Minister James Marape that saw everyone looking happy and excited about when they left the Parliament cambers.
His first question was in relation to the reports of Central Bank having low storage of foreign reserves that gave rise to the suspension on the supply of aviation fuel by the Puma Energy thus the cancellation of domestic flights nationwide by the aviation industry last week.
“There are lots going on social media that Central Bank have low foreign reserve. Can the government tell the people of PNG whether it is true or not,” Governor Powi asked.
PM Marape in his response said “BPNG is our country’s regulator and mother of our commercial banks in the country and they hold our foreign reserves”.
He said BPNG plays a very important role in ensuring that foreign reserve for PNG is at a rate that is sustainable for the economy.
PM Marape went on announcing to the floor of parliament saying “there are a total of K13 billion equivalent of foreign reserves sitting in the central bank. That is the highest PNG government has ever held in reserve since 1975”.
“Due to the good use of fiscal policy as well as the agricultural export that has gone out, we’ve consistently kept our reserves at high and it has been growing from 10 to 12 billion kina. And now we have an excess of K13 billion sitting at the central bank that can cover for a year expense” he said
Governor Powi in his second question asked the prime minister about the legitimacy of the arrangement between the Inter Oil Refinery and the Central Bank given the ongoing reports of fuel shortage in the country.
“What’s the problem about fuel shortage and all that is happening around the country. PNGans deserve to know what is really happening with Inter Oil, Puma and BPNG.
We are producing natural gas and oil ourselves but why is it that their prizes seem to be very high,” asked Governor Powi.
In response, PM Marape said the Central Bank did not allow Puma to be on board for the commercial banks who supply forex for them to make purchase so that new order can come in.
“That was because of some of the issues BPNG felt that Puma needed to respond to and that Puma has already responded to them,” PM said.
In respect to the arrangement between Inter Oil and Central Bank, PM responded by saying “inter Oil has since left the refinery at Napa Napa about 8 years ago and Puma came in and bought over Inter Oil’s interest in the refinery”.
“Puma did inform us that there’s no strict monopoly by Puma at the moment but we do have other importers for instance Exxon Mobil,” PM clarified.
He said Air Niugini had to shut down last week because upon the contract signed, Puma was to be the only supplier of Jet A1 fuel and when Puma stopped supplying fuel to Air Niugini, they issued stop flight notice for safety reasons.
Meanwhile, PM Marape said his government has signaled the MRDC and Kumul Petroleum to look in to downstream processing to have our own Kutubu crude processed in the country.
