Arthur Somare

Arthur Somare is a former Member of the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea (PNG). He represented the electorate of Angoram Open in East Sepik province for the National Alliance Party from 1997 until he lost in the 2012 general elections.[1][2]

Somare was first elected to the 6th national Parliament in 1997, and has served in several ministerial roles. In March 2006, he resigned as Minister for National Planning and Monitoring over alleged financial improprieties.[3][4] He was reappointed as head of the Ministry for Public Enterprise, Information, and Development in July 2006. In July 2010 the ministry of Finance was added to his portfolio.[5] He lost all ministerial positions after the Name/O'Neil government came into power in August 2011.[6]

As the Minister for Public Enterprises, Somare and his ministry had responsibility for the Independent Public Business Corporation (IPBC), which was the sole shareholder of all of the state owned enterprises such as Air Niugini, Telikom PNG, PNG Power, PNG Ports Corporation, Eda Ranu and Water PNG, and other businesses.[7] Prominent among those other businesses was the more than USD 20billion LNG-PNG project which was managed and majority owned by Exxon-Mobil.[8] Somare was in charge of that project on behalf of the PNG government. He arranged the financing of equity participation by the PNG government through a loan from the International Public Investment Company (IPIC) in Abu Dhabi. This was secured by the shareholding of the PNG government in the Oil Search company. IPIC managed to claim those shares when PNG did not manage to redeem the loan in time. Somare maintains that the project could not have been realized without this financial construction. However, this way of acquiring equity for the PNG state through a secured leverage construction has become controversial and it is one of the main policy issues in PNG. Mekere Morauta is in this field the main opponent of Somare and the acquisition of equity through leverage. Somare is since he left parliament a consultant in natural resources policy issues.[9]

Somare is a son of Papua New Guinea's first Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare, who played a crucial role in attaining independence, and Veronica Somare. Although both belong to the National Alliance Party, party allegiance is of little importance in PNG as parties tend not to be associated with policy positions. Essential in PNG politics is coalition building among various regional centers. The Somare family is associated with the East Sepik region and Arthur Somare started his political career as the District member for Angoram in the East Sepik Province.[10]

  1. ^ "PAPUA NEW GUINEA (National Parliament)".
  2. ^ "Arthur Somare loses seat in PNG election". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 19 July 2012.
  3. ^ "ABC Radio Australia". 11 August 2023.
  4. ^ "Lenalia to head probe – the National".
  5. ^ "Controversial son becomes Finance Minister".
  6. ^ Kantha, Solomon (2015). "Papua New Guinea". The Contemporary Pacific. 27 (2): 519–528. doi:10.1353/cp.2015.0038. ISSN 1527-9464. S2CID 258106243.
  7. ^ Parliamentary statement on IPBC and SOES by Sir Mekere Morauta, Minister of Public enterprises. Available at: https://www.kch.com.pg/state-ipbc-soes/ [permanent dead link]
  8. ^ https://pnglng.comExxon[permanent dead link] secures extra $1.5 billion financing for PNG LNG https://www.reuters.com/article/us-exxon-png-lng-idUSBRE99302N20131004
  9. ^ Stanley Simpson: The inside story on how the LNG PNG project was won. : http://www.businessmelanesia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/bussiness_melanesia_may_issue_opt.pdf Archived 2017-12-01 at the Wayback Machine; http://www.emtv.com.pg/news/2016/06/arthur-somare-wants-clarification-on-ipic-misunderstanding/;http://actnowpng.org/content/theft-and-waste-public-money-papua-new-guineas-public-enterprises
  10. ^ "Siblings following political footsteps - the National". Archived from the original on 2017-03-31. Retrieved 2017-05-30.