Mr Marape – We’re Still Trying to Meet

CAROLINE EVARI

PORT MORESBY – To try to get a high level discussion underway on Papua New Guinea literature, we’ve tried on two occasions to meet with Prime Minister James Marape.

The first time was on Wednesday 22 January after we received information that Mr Marape was willing to meet Betty Wakia , Daniel Kumbon and me in his office at the Manasupe Haus at 2pm the following Friday.

But Daniel had already travelled to Wabag, so we reached out to Jordan Dean and met the following day to have a quick chat and brainstorm around what to say at the meeting.

We turned up at the Manasupe Haus on that Friday and waited for more than an hour only to be told the prime minister had gone to play golf and would meet with us on Sunday at the Airways Hotel at 3pm.

Again we showed up, this time at the Airways and waited for two hours until five only to be told that the meeting was cancelled and we would be contacted when another date and time was confirmed.

We were assured that the prime minister is aware of our petition and will still make time available to meet with us. It is 25 February as I write this, and we have not heard anything yet.

We understand that the prime minister has more important agendas to attend to and we will be patient knowing that he has given his assurance that he will meet with us.

This article first appeared on PNG Attitude on 27 February 2020 at https://www.pngattitude.com/2020/02/mr-marape-were-still-trying-to-meet.html?fbclid=IwAR2BeRcByeflwqMXQy0vxBhNGvyFGCL5tnbjTVe6UoumHpK0xPIP3ABMrHI.