Dede Sophie

People’s Party Founder and Chief Sir Peter Ipatas has retained his seat as the Enga Governor this afternoon after reaching the absolute majority on first count. Sir Peter Ipatas who ran under the party he founded managed to poll 172, 652 votes to surpass the absolute majority of 140, 220 votes to be declared. The runner up Laken Lepatu from the Liberal Party only managed to polled 30, 352 votes, while Independent Candidate Sandy Talita finished on the third place with 24, 277 votes. This will be the 6th term for Sir Peter Ipatas as the Governor of Enga Province.  Formal declaration and signing of writ was done today at 5pm. Sir Peter Ipatas’s declaration now brings the total number of People’s Party members to three. The two earlier declarations are for Dr. Lino Tom, Wabag Open and Freddy Reu Kumai, Talasea Open. Next :  PNG Election : Tketchenko retains Moresby South Open Seat

Prime Minister  James Marape has given his support to development of the oil palm industry in Papua New Guinea on a massive scale. PM Marape gave his support after he and East Sepik Governor,  Allan Bird, met with representatives of Pacific Elite Palm Oil Group in Singapore on Monday (November 21, 2022). The company currently runs an oil palm project in East Sepik, which it wants to emulate in all provinces, saying that it will be an economic gamechanger for the whole country. The company aims to create the largest agriculture-based wealth in the South Pacific, as well as generate electricity for PNG, using oil palm. Governor Bird told PM Marape that if a long-term oil palm development plan was drawn up, with the aim of economic independence for PNG, one million hectares of oil palm grown all over PNG would bring in an extra K100 billion for the country. “We can double our GDP just from palm oil,” he said. “If we go into downstream processing, this K100 billion could double, so that we