Prime Minister, James Marape, has announced the appointment of Foreign Affairs Minister and Kikori MP, Soroi Eoe, as Acting Prime Minister.
PM Marape will be leaving for the 76th United Nations General Assembly from the 21st to 26th of September 2021 in New York.
This is will be PM Marape’s first attendance at the UNGA since taking office in 2019.
PM Marape in statement explained that he had turned down the 74th UNGA invitation due to the Bougainville referendum in which he had made a commitment to see through; and missed the 75th UNGA due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said the opportunity to attend this provides PNG the chance to present the country’s position in relation to the country’s biodiversity and rain forests.
He explained that PNG holds about 6-7 percent of the world’s biodiversity and up to 13% of the world’s rainforest.
“I am of the hope that with understanding and collaboration, industrialized member countries of the United Nations, whom we call ‘Our Big Brothers’ for the leading role they play in our global community will find a middle ground to negotiate with our country the best solutions to conserving our biodiversity and rain forest in exchange for development incentive so that, together, we mitigate the threat climate change is posing for our planet,” stated PM Marape on behalf of the wider Pacific community.
In conclusion, he added that it is high time the global climate fund who highly advise of preserving our natural environment start considering paying those development dollars for our basic services like health, education and quality economic infrastructure.
The PM will be presenting these messages at the UNGA meeting on the 24th of September at 3:45pm New York time.
