It gives me the greatest pleasure to be here this morning on behalf of Prime Minister Marape to officiate at this flag raising ceremony to commemorate and celebrate Papua New Guinea's 47 years as an Independent Nation. Our Prime Minister is unable to make it as he is away attending to the funeral of our Queen in England, accompanied by the Governor General. He sends his apologies. This occasion provides yet again, that opportunity for us to reflect on our development achievements and challenges over the past 46 years and rechart a meaningful course for progress in the next 50 years and beyond. I want to give thanks to the Merciful and Almighty God for His continued presence and guidance upon us over the past 46 years. On this day 47 years ago, our forefathers raised the flag for the first time. It signaled the end of over 90 years of colonial rule. Australia's flag was not torn down. It was lowered with dignity, which marks the peaceful transition of rule, which is a major achievement in and of itself for a nation of such diversity of a thousand tribes. Our forefathers gave us political independence. On this occasion we must also acknowledge the passing of our head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, who our constituent assembly in 1974 invited to become the Head of State, of a newly emerging nation of Papua New Guinea. We were graced 47 years ago by the presence of His then Royal Highness Prince of Wales Prince Charles, who we have all have collectively proclaimed as the new Head of State for Papua New Guinea. Thus we remain a member of the Commonwealth family of nations. Later today, London time, our Prime Minister and His Excellency the Governor General will have an opportunity to convey our nation's congratulations to His Majesty King Charles III. We mourn the passing of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and herald the accession to the throne of His Majesty King Charles III. Following the recent National Elections, our people overwhelmingly returned our government to power, and this is evident in that most of our candidates scored 60% of the actual total votes regardless of whether they came first, second or third in the preferences. This is an indication of the trust and confidence that our people have in the governing coalition of PANGU Pati and our partners, in our position on good governance, sound fiscal and economic management and for socio-economic development to be inclusive so that we leave no one behind. The stability and continuity in Government only strengthens our resolve to continue to do more for our country, to ask more for our resources, and to ensure that we sustain our economic recovery plan going forward and at the same time giving confidence to our investment partners so that they too can prosper with us fairly. We are not a new government. We are a continuing government that is now better prepared and positioned to effectively coordinate and deliver on its development priorities in the next five years. This Government is now more targeted and focused on critical areas that will spur future economic growth, and bring much needed development to all of us, particularly the unreached in rural Papua New Guinea especially through our "Connect PNG" program. We have embarked on current key policy and legislative reforms including Budget Repair and Maintenance Program which focuses on getting the economy back on track. The approach undertaken was geared towards debt reduction and prudent management as well as amendments to legislations and policies in key economic sectors to draw maximum outputs and benefits from our resource development sector. The 2019 Loloata Outcome continues to serve as the blueprint and guiding beacon, capturing all the targeted sectoral reforms aligning them with our overall development policies and plans. We cannot just keep talking about concepts, we already have the appropriate policies in place and what we need now is total and unequivocal commitment and hard work to practically realize and implement key concepts to achieve industrialization and economic growth for our people. These policy concepts have been translated into Key Result Areas (KRAs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPls) for respective ministries to implement. This complements the recent restructuring of Government including the creation of new ministries namely International Trade and Investment, Livestock, Oil Palm and Coffee. We are restructuring all our functions of government and harnessing the potential of various sectors such as the Renewable and Non-Renewable sectors that have been lying dormant for the last 46 years. Now is the time to anchor these vast and abundant renewable resources to be the combustion for manufacture and draw maximum profit outputs to sustain our development agenda, especially service delivery to all our people. Our people must also be included and empowered and be participants in this economic growth. No one will do this for our people, we must do it for our children and for our future generations to come. Let us all build Papua New Guinea together - public servants, private sector, business, low- and high income earners, formers, fisherman and ordinary citizens throughout this great nation must play their individual parts. Whilst our focus in years gone by was mainly on the non-renewable resources sector which is depletable and only serves 10% of the economy, we are now giving equal attention to the renewable sector that serves 80% of our people who can be empowered and meaningfully engaged when we appropriately harness the Agricultural Industry. Agriculture is the major priority of our government, and we will extend support to include the Fisheries, Forestry and Tourism sectors whose potential are yet to be fully realized. This Government notes the abundance of our vast natural resources that need to be utilized. More emphasis in the next three years will be placed on harnessing the agriculture sector through introduction of innovative farming methods in cash crop production, livestock, and poultry. We have a large expanse of grassland and arable land in Markam, Ramu Valley and the Sepik Plain. We also have plenty of river streams for irrigation flowing out of Brown River, Purari, Ramu, Sepik, and the Fly River, which can be harnessed foragriculture purposes. The rural masses who are engaged in Agriculture, are our biggest asset that can be easily employed in the sector once we provide them with support and workableinitiatives to toil their land. Our government will continue to provide price support and freight subsidy for major commodities such as cocoa, coffee, rubber, and copra for ease of market accessibility. In the long run, we will re-establish the Price Stabilization Fund to support the rural farmers. This Government realizes the importance of harnessing this sleeping giant and its potential to employ most of our rural population. There is an urgent need for passage of the Agriculture Adjustment and Agriculture Investment Corporation Draft Bills. This includes the proposal to restructure and transition the Oil Palm Industry Corporation (OPIC) into an Authority to effectively deal with all aspects of the Oil Palm Sector such as investing into mills, research and development and market access. The Livestock Industry is in the process of being revived with the reopening of cattle ranches such as Launakalana and abattoirs throughout the country to improve import substitution and domestic food security, thus the creation of specific ministries to drive these agendas. In the forestry sector, the Forest Strategic Plan, 2021 to 2030 was launched last year, which is basically aimed at increasing tax on round log export and eventually banning round log export by 2025. This plan is timely and is in line with government's announcement in 2021 to ban round logs to enable resource owners to venture into downstream processing of our round logs and encourage Plantation development. The Forestry Act is also under review which will give emphasis to the establishment of the State Marketing Agency and to exercise the State's 25% Purchase Option of timber which has been idle since the Act's inception. Our government is committed to give equal opportunity to resource owners to also operate and own business in the medium to long term in the forestry space. The Fisheries Sector through National Fisheries Authority (NFA) is undertaking a major re-focus on its domestic activities to encourage domestication and export of fisheries products to ensure that we receive maximum benefits. In particular, emphasis has been placed on artisanal and inland fisheries programs such as re-stocking of the Highlands River system with trout and farming of mud crabs to build our stock for domestic consumption including export to overseas markets. To secure and protect the vast marine resources we have at our disposal, National Fisheries Authority has beefed up its fisheries surveillance operations to curtail Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in our waters. Papua New Guinea has pristine and untouched locations such as Lake Kutubu, Surunki and other places that are unique and not found anywhere else in the world. There is clearly untapped potential in PNG for a thriving tourism industry, which would accelerate economic growth through increased employment and market opportunities. A review of the Tourism Promotion Authority Act is underway to ensure that this sector’s potential is appropriately harnessed in order to draw positive economic outcomes. Climate change continues to adversely impact our people and across the Pacific Region, and we must look at innovative technology in climate change adaptation and mitigation. We must reclaim the land that we are losing to rising sea levels and which is causing displacement to our people. The Managalas Conservation area is an opportunity to preserve and conserve our forest resources for real and practical developments for our future generations. This will be replicated in other areas to further conserve our forest resources for our future generations to come. Though we are not satisfied with the underwhelming outcomes of COP 26, we are continuing to progress efforts to regulate the use of fossil fuels in sectors such as energy generation. The reduced application of sulphur concentrated fuels such as heavy oils will also be accelerated. With the endless markets, domestically and internationally particularly in neighbouring Asian countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, China, India and Korea, our government now has strategic plans to enter these lucrative and niche markets including to export our vast organic produce and non-renewable resources. These will be done through carrying out substantive market analysis and placement of trade commissioners in PNG Diplomatic Post/Missions in the Asian Region. Partnership through Foreign Direct Investment are highly encouraged and will assist in developing our value-add and down-stream processing facilities locally in our special economic zones to bring in much needed revenue streams to support the National Budget. PNG continues to be guided by 'Friends to All and Enemies to None' an Active and Selected Engagement Foreign Policy in conducting its international relations. Our Foreign Policy must be immediately reviewed to enable a strategic outlook and focus with our bilateral and multilateral partners to draw and source development assistance and Foreign Direct Investment that will complement and support our Development Agenda. This will also support our efforts to link up our Provinces and Districts and provide market access and basic services to the many unreached people of our country. Review of the Mining Act 1992 has been completed and once endorsed by NEC, and Parliament will ensure fair and equitable returns to our resource owners, the State and our Developer. Other Amendments that have been passed include Mineral Resource Authority Amendment Act and certain sections of the Mining Act 1992 to accommodate necessary situations. The long-awaited re-opening of Porgera mine will happen during this tenure of this government and Wafi-Golpu project will commence construction phase very shortly. For Ok Tedi, I am proud to say that it continues to pay dividend to the State because of prudent management and favourable weather conditions that allow shipment of ore. Other Mines are in operation and are in preparation for reviews such as Ramu because of increase in output and Lihir which the SML will expire in 2023. In the gas and oil sectors, P'nyang and Papua LNG projects have been successfully negotiated, and are entering the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) stage. Other Projects such as Elk Antelope and Pasca are being reviewed and pending the satisfaction of the state's project parameters, they will proceed as planned. Review of Oil and Gas Act 1998 is progressing well with necessary changes on benefit sharing arrangements. Other necessary amendments have been completed to accommodate situations. Our economy cannot develop and progress if our service industries are not reliably functioning. To support our economy, we have embarked upon major reforms of our State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) to improve their overall performance in terms of service delivery and revenue generation to complement the National Budget. These reforms are also intended to ensure profitability, improved services in the airline industry, water, electricity, and telecommunications and ensure independence of the SOE's as well as create gender balance in appointment of the Board of Directors to encourage good governance. In 2021, Telikom and Bmobile were merged into a single retail business, allowing our government to approve the partial privatization of the merged entity, to raise much needed capital to support the National Transmission Network (NTN) Project. This was followed by the merging of Water PNG and Eda Ranu. The reforms exercise has also expanded to include the restructuring of the PNG Power Limited and establishment of National Energy Authority (NEA) to regulate energy development that will see the rollout of the National Electrification Roll Out Program (NEROP). This effort has been complimented by our development partners through the PNG Electrification Program (PEP) by connecting 70% households by 2027. Aside from that, Air Niugini has embarked on major recovery programs to bolster service levels and revenue generation at the cost of K120 million following the advent of COVID-19. The Connect PNG Program also, which is expected to cost up to K20 billion which is K1 billion a year and will be funded by the Government and its development partners. Priority road projects under construction in the first phase will include major seven national economic road corridors which will cover 4,244.6 km of roads that connect our people to basic government services and markets throughout PNG. The construction of these key quality road infrastructure development projects will enable the creation of businesses, with job opportunities for our people to utilize to sustain and improve their livelihoods. Trade and Investment are also key ingredients to our growing economy as can be seen from revenue generated from PNG exports that totalled USD 9.34 Billion while Foreign Direct Investment for 2020 was at USD 0.94B, a 3.87% increase from 2019. This is an exciting time to increase trade revenue and harness business and investment opportunities. The creation of the recent Trade and Investment Ministerial Portfolio will take carriage and coordination of our investment priorities to grow the economy, bring in innovation and state of the art technology and facilities, transfer of skills and knowledge and increase Foreign Direct Investment. All these development plans and initiatives will not be achieved without a safe and secure environment and this Government, your government will therefore be addressing law and order problems head on. I call on all men of this great nation to be responsible in carrying out their duties to respect and protect our womenfolk, children, persons with disabilities and the vulnerable within our societies. This is critical in ensuring a safe and secure environment for all our citizens to live in peace, harmony, and work to grow the economy of this country. If you continue to commit crime and illegal activities, you are considered an enemy of our State and will be severely tried for your crimes under our laws. Our government is also paying full attention to industrializing the economy leading into our 50th Anniversary of independence. We invite existing and potential multilateral and bilateral donors to partner with us in value-adding and downstream processing of our vast natural resources for fair and equitable returns for our resource owners, state, and developers. This will also generate revenue streams that will increase our foreign exchange and complement our national budget. Industrialization is a very bold undertaking by this Government, and it requires the concerted effort of all our people, business and investors and the Government and Development Partners. We also want to dispel the common perception that Papua New Guinea is incapable of embarking on major industrialization projects. We cando it. The Government as I mentioned earlier is now better positioned to see through its plans and initiative's, including the policy and legislative amendments through reforms, restructuring and readjusting of our Cabinet and Public Service. The future is promising and requires our collective resolve and commitment to make us a modernized society that is structured and ensuring its people are positively impacted by the Government's development plans. Until such time that our people in remote Lagai village in Menyamya, Mougolu village in Western Province and Pataku Island in Manus, can access a fully stocked aid post and a fully resourced school, only then can we have a reason to celebrate. Let us celebrate our 47th year peacefully with our families and with a reinvigorated outlook and approach to improve for the better in the road to our 50 years of Nationhood in the next three years. It gives me great pleasure today to come here this morning. This is also my first time to attend Independence Ceremony here in Port Moresby, I usually go back home to my people of Lae, But, It gave me a lot of pride when I walked inside this morning and I saw all our people, including young children, come to celebrate independence, carrying our flag, that shows pride and it made me, as a Member, Deputy Prime Minister and Acting Prime Minister, a very, very proud Papua New Guinean. We must all unite. It is our 47 years today. It shows our growth and resilience as a Nation. When we all come together, it shows our pride as Papua New Guineans. When I travel to other places and I get on the plane and travel back and land at Jacksons International Airport, I get a feeling of peace in me, that I have arrived back home in my own country. And when I see our people, despite hardships, despite everything, we have overcome so much. We will overcome all adversities, all negativities and we will prosper as a nation and show everyone else that we are Papua New Guinea and we are here to stay. With this, I would like to wish you, all the people of Papua New Guinea, Happy Independence. God Bless you all.