Press Statement

The recent announcement by the National Gaming Control Board (NGCB) that it will be partnering with a private firm to build a casino in Port Moresby raises serious governance implications on the sector says Transparency International PNG (TIPNG). It has been reported by the media that the NGCB and the Paga Hill Development Corporation (PHDC) signed an MOU to build a casino which in its first phase of development will cost at least K150 million.

A panel discussion during the recent Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) 1st National Integrity Summit, funded by the European Union, has underscored a data void in the PNG forestry sector, which has facilitated the manipulation and plundering of PNG resource owners by foreign logging companies for decades.

Ahead of Papua New Guinea’s scheduled mutual evaluation by the Asia- Pacific Group on Money-Laundering’s (APGML) next year, serious concerns have now been raised by watchdog agencies regarding the need for urgent collaborative action to improve anti-money laundering enforcement to prevent PNG from slipping back into the APGML grey list.

Community trust is essential for effective policing in Papua New Guinea. Allegations of police brutality, improper conduct by some sections of police and lack of progress on several high-profile cases, can cause mistrust and perceptions of a lack of accountability within the force says Transparency International PNG (TIPNG).

Concerns over the abuse of COVID-19 funding have been heightened in the past few weeks, with new allegations of the awarding of contracts to public servants suggesting a direct conflict of interest. Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) has now called on the government to release all reports on funding for the COVID-19 response to restore public trust. TIPNG has been calling for greater accountability of COVID-19 funds since the initial declaration of the State of Emergency (SOE) in 2020, and subsequent emergency declarations.