ZCZC
BCN-28
PNG-SUMMIT-APEC-MASERATI
Anger as poverty-hit PNG buys 40 Maseratis for APEC
WELLINGTON, Oct 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Papua New Guinea has bought 40
Maserati sports cars to chauffeur world leaders around next month’s Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, triggering an outcry from critics who
say the poverty-stricken country has better things to spend its money on.
The cars — which retail for about US$150,000 each — arrive at a time
when diseases such as polio and TB have re-emerged in PNG.
Two charter flights from Italy — home of the luxury automaker — arrived
this week and pictures of the vehicles being unloaded in Port Moresby were
soon doing the rounds on social media.
Northern Province governor Gary Joffa, a frequent critic of the
government, said money spent on the cars would have been better used to
alleviate PNG’s chronic social ills.
“Papua New Guinea is facing so many problems insofar as health, education,
law and order,” he told Australia’s ABC.
“I just think it’s a slap in the face of the people in Papua New Guinea
who are suffering.”
PNG, the least developed of APEC’s 41 member nations, is hosting the
annual summit of world leaders on November 17-18.
Many in the country, where more than a third of the eight million-strong
population lives in poverty, were already uncomfortable with the money being
spent to host APEC.
The purchase of the luxury sports cars has reinforced their concerns.
“Don’t even know where to start… This is ridiculous, our people deserve
so much better. Can the whole country just boycott #APEC2018 and the
delusional #PNG government!?,” Twitter user Tannah posted.
Some pointed out that the Maseratis would never reach their 240 kilometres
(150 miles) per hour top speed on Port Moresby’s pot-holed roads, and they
would be virtually useless outside the capital.
APEC Minister Justin Tkatchenko defended the decision to buy the
Maseratis.
“The sedans provide the level of carriage for leaders that is standard for
vehicles used at APEC summits,” he said in a statement.
Tkatchenko said the cars would be sold on to the private sector after the
summit and the government had already lined up buyers.
“Having vehicles paid for by the private sector is the smartest way to
have use of the vehicles for APEC at no overall cost to the state,” he said.
BSS/AFP/HR/1415