Parliament Question Time | Tuesday, 13th of February, 2024

The Honorable uh governor for ECP thank you Mr acting speaker um my question without notice is uh directed to the Prime Minister simply because uh I'm not sure which minister should be answering this particular one and by way of uh prease I have asked this question many many times in government caucus without uh receiving a response and therefore I'd like to ask the Prime Minister a series of questions uh number one prime minister could you tell the people of papon guini how many papon ninians are currently unemployed particularly long-term unemployed my second question do you have any idea how many jobs we currently have if you could inform the house and of course the people of Pap in Guinea would you be able to tell the house my third question how many jobs were in existence when you became prime minister and it is now 4 and a half almost 5 years you've been prime minister could you tell the people of Papa New Guinea in these 4 and A2 years how many jobs has the government created for our people are you able to tell the house my fourth question if there are jobs created which sectors were these jobs created [Music] in uh honorable governor for speak um honorable member for uh what Amanda I think I had the point of order from the minister so I'll allow the minister to raise a first point of order honorable member you will resume your seat I will allow the minister to raise the first point of order speaker through you this are very intelligent good questions I respect those questions but I think the question should be asked to the minister who has been charged the appropriate responsibility to answer questions like how many people are being employed in what sector what area or how many will be employed with the next 5 or 10 years the question could be asked to the minister of labor and employment order order um Mr acting speaker the question could be asked La of employment order La of employment the Prime Minister any prime minister Minister responsible the speaker will make a ruling on the point of order so honorable members allow the minister to speak see see ministers are there to answer detail question the question The Honorable govern is asking a detail therefore the detail Minister labor should answer to answer the question thank you order order honorable members allow the speaker to make a ruling on the point of order uh honorable Minister your point of order I will rule that point of order out of order you all know very clearly that many times when The Honorable member asking a question to the Prime Minister who is the Minister of all Minister and it had his own uh discretion to ask a question direct to the prime minister he has the prerogative to ask so uh honorable Minister I rule that point of order out of order The Honorable uh it's been a while since we've had this much excitement on the floor thank you thank you Mr acting speaker uh Mr acting speaker I think the question of jobs is so critical to a country any country any decent country in the world honorable Governor you now have another point of order so allow the member to raise your point of order thank you acing speaker some of us parliamentarians are sitting here like death without this uh pie not working thank [Applause] you okay honorable member I think I should have allowed that point of order come first but uh since then you have allowed honorable Governor you will hold on to your uh question I ask the clar to check on the uh efp sound if our system uh honorable members honorable members the message has been relateded to the technician to look into this and they will address that and I'll allow the question time to continue so all the governor to complete your question yeah I I regrettably uh Mr Speaker planning something Lo B all ear P to B it uh is being very consistent with everything else that walk B so my my my apologies are good member honorable members this is your Parliament this is your Parliament honorable Governor raise your question in regard to what you have raised not on what it is happening here it will be corrected speaker the question of jobs in any decent country is quite critical and therefore I think it should be front and center of the policies of any decent professional government uh Mr acting speaker so to continue and could the good prime minister informed the house which sectors has there been jobs growth number one and which provinces are these jobs in my final question the pangu government has promised the people of papini 1 million jobs by 2027 so by my calculation we should have at least 400,000 of those jobs by the end of this year so could the good prime minister inform the people of papini exactly where the government expects these jobs to be so that at least all our children who are struggling to pay school fees can direct their focus towards those particular provinces where those jobs are going to be and finally how long do they have to wait for thank you Mr acting speaker The Honorable prime minister all right thank you uh thank you Mr acing Speaker I'm just so happy that we have excitement finally in the house maybe on on this side was very boring for some my brother Governor B and others so they decided to go on the other side so as good that they found excitement and uh I want to uh uh answer his question by starting this manner this is a pertinent uh question important question or series of questions that has been ask and uh you I will have a detailed response uh in if not tomorrow and on Thursday but I want to Mr acting speaker to you ask the governor to put his fingers on 2019 statistics before I took office and I'll bring him statistics in terms of the number of jobs he wants P peray people employed to this house if not tomorrow on Thursday or on Friday and we get this record sorted out once and for all instead of all the hype in the public spaces jobs in our country has been minimal since 1975 if you want me to dig into history name me one government that has substantially created job in our country name it is we have been producing more school dropouts in our country than employment in our country yeah yeah that is why when we took office this pangu Administration took office we put in place a focus on Second Chance education for school drers to come back into school that's why when we took office we put trade support for our commodity programs commodity crops Nationwide that's why when we took office we put price support when price fails that's why when we took office we put SM intervention fund program no no government before our time is ever put into these programs Mr acting speaker you can open 10 mines tomorrow you know how much they will create the employment space just ask PNG lngg right now they're employing not more than 1,000 not more than 1,000 that is why we said we will create a million jobs in the this mtdp before Mr Speaker as every government and opposite def on definition my definition of job def from the governor of my definition of job is economically active and engage Pap not sitting behind a job desk from 8:00 to 4:00 or 4:06 or from 7:00 to 5:00 that strategy has not unbundled Pap from its fullest potential Mr acting speaker that is the reason why I had to let go of my my brother Richard Maru and supported Governor B for the 300 million K [Applause] project that is the reason simple as that it's not about putting men beyond the desk job of course that is the work in progress for us I will make a detail if he wants a statistics of how many people are employed right now put your finger on 2019 and I'll make reference to what employment was before 2019 and what employment is today I will bring it to you in the next two or three weeks or two or three days but the point is Mr acting speaker even if you open up 10 gold mines 10 gold mine will not employ over 200,000 young public nant coming out of school system grade eight dropouts grade 10 dropouts play to dropouts Unity dropouts ask member for yellow pank suddenly your friend now what has he done in the [Applause] order order honorable member for yuang you have a point of order what's your point of order my point of order is this of course the Prime Minister likes making reference to me and I appreciate that and I thank him for it too yeah thank you for constantly reminding the nation that I'm around but but let me uh let me say this it is the prime minister himself who made a commitment to the nation that he will provide and create 1 million jobs the the governor is simply asking him a question that how far have you provided 1 million jobs that's only asking stop blaming people and we will provide you 2019 uh data we'll provide you that but answer the question where are the 1 million jobs and tell the Prime Minister all this youth he asked them if they looking for job to to call him how many youth has he called and how many jobs has he provided stop misleading the house stop misleading the country thank honorable honorable uh honorable member for Al bangia I will rule the point of order out of order um allow the Prime Minister I think the Prime Minister have already made a statement clear that he will uh report to the parliament on detail on what you have raised so I'll allow the prime minister to uh complete this uh reply I am really super excited and super Char up now so I'm just so happy Mr acting speaker but as I was saying earlier my our definition of job differs from the opposite their defition of definition of job is someone sitting be 8 to 4 7 to5 that's okay we'll create that space to but we want to empower Pap who own land to who own land in our country to go back into economic activities so they can take control of their own destiny that's where the 1 million jobs will come from that's where the 1 million jobs will come from that's where the focus on Downstream processing will create a value added job in our country and so we think at a different levels Mr acting speaker they think the job they've been trained to go and find job when they come out of University that's a level of thinking we thinking about economic empowerment of our citizens and I I I'm here to find out about the 300 million k I facilit to to isic if people are now engaged in agriculture productivity in isic that's happy for me honorable prime minister we have a point of order uh Governor can I uh just make a point of order to say that the prime minister is actually in charge of the Department of National planning which oversees this particular project so for him to ask my myself as Governor the project is not run by the ECP provincial government of which I am responsible for it is run through the European Union program under the Department of National planning so I suggest that if he wants a report as to the performance of that particular program he should look no further than our good Minister The Honorable anop Pala for a response thank you The Honorable Governor um the prime minister is responding on a question that you have raised and referred to what the have commanded and your point of order is like making a statement in correction to what the Prime Minister have said so I will rule your point of order out of order and I will let the prime minister [Music] to I'll I'll uh I'll uh I'll end here but I just want to give Assurance to the governor good questions is asked let ask the S statistics based reply he asked to receive the statistics but on the principle of our our policy orientations our focus on this side is not just uh day job but we want to empower people to be economically economically participating in our country that is where we could mobilize greater amount instead of just next 5 years focus on putting people behind a PID desk I will report to him and I ask this Parliament my statistics will start before 2019 and after 2019 so the country knows exactly what is happening our fiscal intervention is all about creating job creation in our country thank you Mr Speaker