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RNZ News
14-07-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Free medicine on offer in PNG's East Sepik
The Governor of East Sepik in Papua New Guinea, Allan Bird, has announced a partnership with a local pharmacy to improve access to drugs and medicines.
RNZ News
13-07-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Allan Bird: Punishing offenders must come first to tackle PNG's cycle of violence
Allan Bird Photo: Facobook / Allan Bird RNZ Pacific has been looking at the pervasive levels of violence in Papua New Guinea and how the country might overcome it. According to the Human Rights Watch World Report 2024 , violence and conflict over resources have resulted in more than 400 deaths and displaced over 20,000 people since the 2022 general elections. In May, Dr Sinclair Dinnen, a security expert at the Australian National University (ANU), spoke of the fraying of the consent of the community that police used to be able to rely on. He said some of this can be attributed to behaviour on the part of the police force itself, along with the fairly violent context in which many people find themselves living in PNG. The executive director of the Institute of National Affairs, Paul Barker, told us last week that the lawlessness is, at least partly, a reflection of the social and economic plight of the country. He said beefing up the police alone, as the government is planning to do, will not work if it does not take the wider community with it. The governor of East Sepik Province, Allan Bird, told RNZ Pacific that the immediate focus must be on policing, with a hard push to punish the offenders, before there can be talk of jobs and education. (This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.) ALLAN BIRD: For violence, I think the most important thing is that we need police to actually identify people, prosecute them and put them in jail, as a deterrent. At the moment, one statistic we had some time back was that we get about 18,000 arrests for violent crime, and out of the 18,000 we get something like 200 convictions a year. So, it is almost like a licence for people to continue doing it. Until we get more boots on the ground in terms of policemen, better preparation of case files and better prosecution, these things are not going to get better overnight, unfortunately. DON WISEMAN: I've been speaking with Paul Barker. He says there's a whole series of factors involved in this. There's the lack of opportunity that people have, absolutely lack of jobs, lack of proper education opportunities. This is a problem that's very common around the world right now, and I guess going to become increasingly so. And he also says it's all very well to up the numbers of police, but they've got to be properly resourced. They've got to have plenty of vehicles, and there's got to be a lot more involvement of the community, because these problems are bigger than just lawlessness. It's a breakdown of social values and everything else. AB: I totally agree with that. My thinking is it is a chicken and egg question. Now, what do you do first? Do you go out and try to create the jobs and get people educated and all of that? We have got seven million people in this country that are already victims of these failures in the system. Those people are already there. Education is going to take us 20 years, and of course, we have got to do all those things. We have got a government that is totally inept. It does not know what it is doing, and we are not going to get the jobs that we need in the next six to 12 or even 18 months, unless you have got smarter people running the country making better decisions. So that's the reason why, for me, I am cutting straight to the policing because unless you get smart leadership in Papua New Guinea, I will be dead by the time they sort those things out to be honest with you. I am going for the easy win at the moment, which is, beef up the law and order. And if you do, there might be people who would be interested to come and invest their money that will create jobs and opportunities and all of those sorts of things. In fact, there is been almost zero investments in Papua New Guinea in the last 15 years. We are not doing really great in the jobs area, to be honest. DW: Takes money, of course. AB: It takes confidence. It takes a lot of things for private sector to come and invest their money, not just in Papua New Guinea, but anywhere else in the world. They look for security for their investments. No one is going to come and toss a billion kina, billion dollars in Papua New Guinea to sort of invest in something if, you know, they don't trust the government. They don't trust the systems, if there's no law and order. It comes back to your chicken and egg question.
Scoop
11-07-2025
- Health
- Scoop
East Sepik Province in PNG gets innovative to solve health issues
, RNZ Pacific Senior Journalist The governor of East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea has announced a partnership with a local pharmacy to improve access to drugs and medicines. A deal between City Pharmacy Limited, the Provincial Health Authority, and the Provincial Government aims to ensure that Sepik residents have fast access to quality medicines, free of charge. The provincial government is making a payment of PGK 500,000 (about US$118,000) from the Provincial Services Improvement Program (PSIP) to the pharmacy company. The company has outlets in Wewak and Maprik, with others planned in Angoram and Boram Hospital. RNZ Pacific asked the East Sepik Allan Bird if half a million kina would be enough. (This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.) ALLAN BIRD: No it won't. We've got three million in the budget for that. We're just starting off with half a million because, like everything that's new, no one's ever tried this in Papua New Guinea before. But I'm sick and tired of waiting for a corrupt, incompetent national government to respond, because I cop all the flack when there's no medicine in East Sepik, even though it's not my job. So, I've decided to bite the bullet, and fortunately, there's a local company that's honest and transparent. It's not one of these 'fly by night' companies that sort of do deals in dark corners, and there's massive kickbacks. City Pharmacy Limited has been operating in Papua New Guinea for, I don't know, maybe 30 or 40 years. It's owned by our Super Fund. Essentially, the Papua New Guinean workers own a majority of the shares there. So that gives me the confidence to work with them. Of course, that they've had two pharmacies in my province operating, you know, almost 200 kilometers apart in my province. There's reach there. When we run out of medicine at the hospital, people come running to me, or they run to another member of parliament asking for us to help them pay for medicine, that's one, they can't find us, then the poor doctor or the nurse or some other medical worker who's already struggling to look after their own family has to fork the money out of their own pocket. This system that we're using has been used by City Pharmacy Limited for, I think, a number of years, with the medical insurers in the country. I'm just really pleased that they're happy to try it out with us. We're running a trial, and then every month, we get a report and we have a look and see how it's working. Because the last thing you need is it's hard enough accessing medical services, not just in my province, but in the whole country. But once people get to the end of the line and they get diagnosed, and the clinician turns around and says, 'Look, sorry, we got no medicine. Here's the prescription. Can you go buy it?' This person's been waiting, traveling, waiting, all of that is probably 24 hours, 36 hours just to get that far and be told, Look, you got to go buy your own medicine. And so given that sort of scenario I want to be able to sleep well at night knowing that my people are being looked after. If the system works out, and the whole country wants to adopt it. I've been critical of the medical suppliers in Papua New Guinea since the day I walked into parliament. It's one of the biggest rorts in this country, and it continues to be so. DON WISEMAN: It's not your only concern about the health sector in East Sepik, is it? You've been at the [Boram] Hospital recently and you weren't impressed? AB: I knew for a while. I knew, like a year and a half ago, that because the rest of the health system - we're rebuilding the entire health system in my province. So let me just start by saying that. But I didn't know that we had makeshift facilities because all the other facilities around the province are not functioning, and this specialist hospital, which, when we first designed it, we didn't design it with what you might call an outpatient facility, because it's not meant to have one. But in the absence of functioning medical facilities around the province, we've got no choice. We got to bite the bullet. So I allocated the money sometime last year, about 18 months ago. I hate these government systems that take so long. And I was quite crook on Monday morning as well Sunday and at 2am in the morning I had to go to the hospital. And I think maybe God wanted me to be sick so I could see all of this. So when I saw it, it broke my heart. I mean, these are the people I represent. So I've said to them, Look, you guys, have 60 days to rectify this. The money is there. I want this facility built, you know, I don't want to come here and see the same thing happening again. So we've got really crazy systems, you know what I mean? And they're so cumbersome, you know, it just doesn't help us. But I've said to them, 'Look, I respect the processes, but can we push it a little bit faster? Because 18 months is simply unacceptable.' Now you've got people lying around in the corridor, out in the open with an IV in their arm, sleeping on the floor. That would be unacceptable anywhere else in the world. It should also be unacceptable here.
RNZ News
11-07-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
East Sepik Province in PNG gets innovative to solve health issues
Allan Bird says that in the absence of functioning medical facilities around the province, they got no choice. Photo: AFP PHOTO/Torsten BLACKWOOD The governor of East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea has announced a partnership with a local pharmacy to improve access to drugs and medicines. A deal between City Pharmacy Limited, the Provincial Health Authority, and the Provincial Government aims to ensure that Sepik residents have fast access to quality medicines, free of charge. The provincial government is making a payment of PGK 500,000 (about US$118,000) from the Provincial Services Improvement Program (PSIP) to the pharmacy company. The company has outlets in Wewak and Maprik, with others planned in Angoram and Boram Hospital. RNZ Pacific asked the East Sepik Allan Bird if half a million kina would be enough. (This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.) ALLAN BIRD: No it won't. We've got three million in the budget for that. We're just starting off with half a million because, like everything that's new, no one's ever tried this in Papua New Guinea before. But I'm sick and tired of waiting for a corrupt, incompetent national government to respond, because I cop all the flack when there's no medicine in East Sepik, even though it's not my job. So, I've decided to bite the bullet, and fortunately, there's a local company that's honest and transparent. It's not one of these 'fly by night' companies that sort of do deals in dark corners, and there's massive kickbacks. City Pharmacy Limited has been operating in Papua New Guinea for, I don't know, maybe 30 or 40 years. It's owned by our Super Fund. Essentially, the Papua New Guinean workers own a majority of the shares there. So that gives me the confidence to work with them. Allan Bird says no one's ever tried this in Papua New Guinea before. Photo: Facobook / Allan Bird Of course, that they've had two pharmacies in my province operating, you know, almost 200 kilometers apart in my province. There's reach there. When we run out of medicine at the hospital, people come running to me, or they run to another member of parliament asking for us to help them pay for medicine, that's one, they can't find us, then the poor doctor or the nurse or some other medical worker who's already struggling to look after their own family has to fork the money out of their own pocket. This system that we're using has been used by City Pharmacy Limited for, I think, a number of years, with the medical insurers in the country. I'm just really pleased that they're happy to try it out with us. We're running a trial, and then every month, we get a report and we have a look and see how it's working. Because the last thing you need is it's hard enough accessing medical services, not just in my province, but in the whole country. But once people get to the end of the line and they get diagnosed, and the clinician turns around and says, 'Look, sorry, we got no medicine. Here's the prescription. Can you go buy it?' This person's been waiting, traveling, waiting, all of that is probably 24 hours, 36 hours just to get that far and be told, Look, you got to go buy your own medicine. And so given that sort of scenario I want to be able to sleep well at night knowing that my people are being looked after. If the system works out, and the whole country wants to adopt it. I've been critical of the medical suppliers in Papua New Guinea since the day I walked into parliament. It's one of the biggest rorts in this country, and it continues to be so. DON WISEMAN: It's not your only concern about the health sector in East Sepik, is it? You've been at the [Boram] Hospital recently and you weren't impressed? AB: I knew for a while. I knew, like a year and a half ago, that because the rest of the health system - we're rebuilding the entire health system in my province. So let me just start by saying that. But I didn't know that we had makeshift facilities because all the other facilities around the province are not functioning, and this specialist hospital, which, when we first designed it, we didn't design it with what you might call an outpatient facility, because it's not meant to have one. But in the absence of functioning medical facilities around the province, we've got no choice. We got to bite the bullet. So I allocated the money sometime last year, about 18 months ago. I hate these government systems that take so long. And I was quite crook on Monday morning as well Sunday and at 2am in the morning I had to go to the hospital. And I think maybe God wanted me to be sick so I could see all of this. So when I saw it, it broke my heart. I mean, these are the people I represent. So I've said to them, Look, you guys, have 60 days to rectify this. The money is there. I want this facility built, you know, I don't want to come here and see the same thing happening again. So we've got really crazy systems, you know what I mean? And they're so cumbersome, you know, it just doesn't help us. But I've said to them, 'Look, I respect the processes, but can we push it a little bit faster? Because 18 months is simply unacceptable.' Now you've got people lying around in the corridor, out in the open with an IV in their arm, sleeping on the floor. That would be unacceptable anywhere else in the world. It should also be unacceptable here.
RNZ News
01-07-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Pacific news in brief for 1 July
Niue government buildings Photo: RNZ/ Sally Round Health, education, social welfare and government salaries have receives a boost in the Niue government's new NZ$12.5 million (US$7.6m) deficit budget. Last week, the island's finance minister announced the largest expenditure of the government is to cover the salaries of its workforce and the cost of social services. TV Niue reported the health department gets the highest increase in this budget of more than $880,000, a 26 percent boost. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown has announced several new initiatives aimed at enhancing firearm regulation and safety across the Pa Enua (outer islands). Cook Islands News reported this includes the resumption of police-issued ammunition and plans to simplify the driving licensing process for tourists. Speaking in parliament, Brown confirmed that the Cook Islands Police has reinstated its role as the official supplier of ammunition to the Pa Enua. The move is expected to assist island communities in managing issues such as wild animal control. East Sepik Governor Allan Bird has raised concerns over a drop in chicken sales nationwide. Bird said the government banned the importation of frozen chicken from Australia and New Zealand with the pretext of protecting the Papua New Guinea industry from foreign competitors and diseases. He said it was a short-sighted decision and now as imported chicken stock runs out, the impact is being felt around the country. He said imported chickens retail at about 22 kina ($US5.33) per kilo, while locally produced chickens retail at about 40 kina. Bird said local chicken production will remain expensive because the chicken feed is imported and 80 per cent of the cost of producing a chicken is the feed cost. A large Samoan festival - the Teuila Festival - has been cancelled this year. The festival, which features cultural performances and the Miss Samoa pageant, has been cancelled to avoid a timing clash with Samoa's general election. The Miss Samoa pageant has been rescheduled, to run from 27 October to 9 November. Fijian Nazhat Shameem Khan has been elevated to the topmost prosecutorial position at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Fiji Times reported the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC has announced that deputy prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang have taken over leadership, following prosecutor Karim Khan KC's temporary leave of absence. In May Khan, who is British, stepped aside pending the outcome of a United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services investigation into alleged misconduct. Nazhat Shameem Khan is a Fijian diplomat and former judge. Fiji's Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is poised to attend Papua New Guinea's 50th independence anniversary celebrations in Port Moresby on 16 September. Local media reports Rabuka praising his PNG counterpart James Marape for his leadership in strengthening the region and expressed Fiji's commitment to maintaining strong diplomatic ties with PNG. Fiji and PNG established diplomatic relations in 1975 and continue to build on their traditional, political, and economic partnership.
