Lamb flaps should be banned in Papua New Guinea

A private member bill introduced by the former Aglip South Waghi MP, Jamie Maxton Graham, to ban lamb flaps in PNG had stirred debate among Papua New Guineans and importers and dealers in lamb flaps.

Hon Jammie Maxton Graham, MP

However, the issue had been dropped after Mr Graham has lost his seat in the last election. Food containing fat, like lamp flaps, play a vital role in our body. Stored fats is used when we do not take enough fatty food in our diet. However, fat becomes injurious to health when we continuously eat fatty foods like lamb flaps as it builds up in the tissues.

The fat content of a lamb flap is about 90% of which 50% is saturated fat. This is five times the daily requirement of our body.

Saturated fat is stored as glycerol in muscle tissue. Excess fat build up under the skin and inside the body and can weaken the normal functions of heart, liver and other organs. Continuous deposition of fat can lead to many lifestyle diseases such as heart failure, strokes, coronary heart disease, colon cancer, diabetes, obesity and many more.

It has became an issue of debate in parliament because many leaders do not understand the low nutritional value of lamb flaps. Many countries overseas regard it as waste food and feed it to domestic cats and dogs because they have the nutritional knowledge.

It should be ban it here in PNG and supplement it with other protein. The government should solve the current issues in the Department of Agriculture and Livestock and pump more money into the department so we can raise our own sheep, pigs and poultry as an alternative to lamb flaps. We have enough land to do that. The government must also support existing piggery companies like Radho and Boroma at 14 Mile and cattle farms like those in the Markham Valley and others.

Wapenamanda’s Tsak LLG Elections turned into nightmare

By Joe WASIA

The Tsak constituency in Wapenamanda district of Enga Province is the home of some of the highly educated elites in Papua New Guinea including the head of the PNG's legal system, Chief Justice Sir Salomo Injia. He hails from the Waimin tribe of the Tsak constituency in the district.

The constituency has its own Local Level Government Council president and has more than 30 council wards. The district administration is comprises of two council presidents from the two constituencies, the district administrator and the open MP as the chairman. This is under the amended law of Provincial and Local Level Government Act.

Under the amended law, the 22 provincial governments receive separate funding from the national government while districts receive K10million direct funding from the government annually. The LLGs will now receive K500 000 direct funding from the national government. This is after governments decision to divert its forecast on the service delivery in all rural districts. 

For year's, since PNG's political independence, the people of Tsak had no problems relating to anyelections. They were the peace-loving people in the province. However, this year LLG election has turned into nightmares for the whole constituency.