To all our valued Nasfund Members, 2021 was yet another challenging year. Containing COVID transmission, treatment, vaccination and keeping our economy going were all day to day topical matters. For business and a majority of our employers, it was a test of resilience and adaptability under new norms. Business houses have become adept in keeping doors open for trade, maintaining employment, paying tax, superannuation, increased licensing fees, accessing limited forex while seeking and investing in new opportunities in a contracting and distressed economy. For us at Nasfund, our priority was to keep staff healthy, maintaining services to members, paying out Section 90 entitlements as and when required and ensuring we continued to deliver a positive return on member savings. Our challenges over 2021 has been the high volume of members applying for a withdrawal of their savings on account of unemployment and retirement which was expected on the back of the Porgera Mine closure and labour shedding across a number of our large employers, including several SOEs. As we did in 2020 we accommodated this by holding a high level of cash. I am pleased to inform, not one member missed out on receiving their entitlement as and when it was legally due. Secondly, while new investment opportunities were limited, your Board addressed a number of existing investments that were impacted by COVID and prevailing economic conditions. While our final audited results will be released in February 2022, I am pleased to report several highlights that reflected our work in 2021; Income and profitability to exceed Expenses maintained below Employees of University of Technology and International Food Corporation voted to remain with Nasfund after issuance of Sect 85 Notice. Acquired 98% ownership of Mainland Holdings Ltd Support for Loloata Island Resort (Nasfund owns 50%). Staff vaccination coverage of 77%. Annual Member / Employer Online conference held in April (over 5,000 member viewers) High engagement   with   employers/members.    Conducted    540    shop    floor presentations covering 8,206 members/potential members. 2 consultative engagements with our 7 shareholder peak Membership base increased by 5% to 621,283 as at 30 November 2021 Employer base increased by 1 % to 2697 as at 30 November 2021 Participated in the Superannuation & Life Insurance Consultative Workshops held in Lae, Buka, Alotau, Kimbe and Kokopo with NSL and Bank of PNG teams. Submissions made to the Superannuation & Life Insurance Review (SLIR) team on suggested amendments to the Superannuation Act as well as response to the SLIR terms of reference. Participated in the consultations carried out by the Independent Advisory Group (IAG) on the Central Bank. Completed annual Board Strategy Completed annual Strategy Asset Allocation workshop and Risk Management Review Lead on Superannuation Industry’s response to Government’s Dominant Industry Player Levy. 2021 is now gone and it is 2022 we must look forward to. We are not out of tough times, we can still expect the same operating environment in 2022, especially as we head into national general elections in June. We will maintain focus on doing the simple basics right while positioning ourselves to capitalize on worthwhile opportunities that deliver value for members in 2022 and beyond. On behalf of the Fund, I assure you of our attention and service at all times. May 2022 be successful and meaningful for each of you.

Prime Minister James Marape has made his commitment on several projects in Manus in his New Year visit to the province last Friday. At a short official ceremony at NBC Beach in Lorengau, Prime Minister Marape addressed the Manus people by emphasising that though Manus is remote and isolated from mainland PNG, he has not forgotten them. With respect to the major development projects, Prime Minister Marape made a commitment of K30 million for work to begin on the construction of the N’Drauke Industrial Port, K10 million for a new COVID-19 and other transmissible Diseases Isolation Facility, this is apart from the budgeted K15 million funding for a new Manus Provincial Hospital and a further K10 million for road works to begin on the East-West Highway road link that falls in the Provincial Government’s jurisdiction. For Manus Provincial Hospital, he wanted to see the immediate establishment of a modern COVID-19 isolation facility in Manus, and further requested for land to be identified and made available for the construction of the new Provincial Hospital. Prime Minister Marape also announced that the new Momote Airport will become an international airport once it becomes operational in February 2022, and will have all enabling facilities including an airport hospital to process international passengers and investors entering Manus and PNG. Other major projects that will come on line in Manus include the Manus Tax Free Region (MTFR) project, which will provide tax exemption, encourage foreign investment and create economic and business activities in the province. Prime Minister Marape further stressed that it is his Government’s priority to provide a conducive environment for service delivery for tangible economic development that impact positively on the lives of people and Manus is no exception. Mr Marape departed for Port Moresby today but said he will visit Manus again early this year to officially launch some of the projects that he has mentioned. The Prime Minister was received on arrival at Momote Airport on Friday by the Commanding Officer of Tarangau Base, Lombrum, and inspected the Guard of Honour and officially welcomed to Manus by the Governor Charlie Benjamin, Manus MP and Speaker of National Parliament Job Pomat, members of the Manus Provincial Assembly and Senior SDA Church Leaders.

Ms Greene has previously questioned the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, alleged school shootings were staged, and claimed a space laser was to blame for a California fire. Twitter has permanently suspended the personal account of US politician Marjorie Taylor Greene for repeated violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy. Ms Greene has been kicked off of Twitter after being issued a "fourth strike" in August when she was suspended for a week for saying that vaccines were failing. She claimed in July that COVID-19 was "not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65" - despite US government figures saying people under 65 accounted for nearly 250,000 of roughly 825,000 deaths. [caption id="attachment_18061" align="aligncenter" width="660"] Ms Greene joins Mr Trump in being suspended from the platform[/caption] Ms Greene has been an ardent supporter of former president Donald Trump, whose personal account has also been permanently suspended from Twitter despite his pleas. Her official Twitter account as a member of the House of Representatives remains on the platform. Following the permanent suspension Ms Taylor Greene said: "Twitter is an enemy to America and can't handle the truth." She also accused the social media platform of attempting to "complete a Communist revolution" by preventing people telling "the truth". SOURCE: SKY NEWS

Basic health services in Matairuka village in Rigo, Central Province have not been forthcoming for over a year now according to Village Councilor Mr Gelema Gaba. Mr Gaba said that the only health facility available in the village is an Aid Post which is wholly supported and funded by The Salvation Army. He said that since the last Aid Post Medical Officer was dismissed in January 2021, the Aid Post which caters for over five thousand people has not been in operation for a year thus resulting in patients having to seek other alternatives in search of medical care and attention. According to Mr Gaba, villagers have had to travel to the nearest health care centre which is located at Kwikila Town, a further 20 kilometers away from the village. “We have not had another medical officer posted to our village since January 2021 and it is now becoming a struggle for the villagers as they now have to seek help elsewhere which at times is costly for them,” Mr Gaba said. A patient from the village who did not wish to be named said that since the closure of the Aid Post, she has made a number of visits to Kwikila Town as well as to Port Moresby to buy medicine from the pharmacies and this has proved to be a costly exercise for her so far. “Lately, I have had to make a few visits to Kwikila Town to look for medicine and to get there and back, I pay K8 in truck fares and then spend over K20 for medicine.” “When I travel to Port Moresby instead, it’s quite costly because I now have to pay K30 in truck fares on top of the costs of medicine.” “Previously when the Aid Post was operational, I only had to spend K5 at the least to receive medication,” she said. With the new year already here, the villagers are hoping that the Aid Post can resume operations soon as they do not wish to go through another year without having a medical officer in the village. The Village Councilor said that the possibility of having another Medical Officer sent to the village will depend largely on the arrangements made by officials from The Salvation Army Church in the village. He hopes that arrangements can be put in place so that a Medical Officer can be sent to the village to enable the people to access health services in the comfort of their own village instead of having to travel far and spending more for basic health services. Image sources: MS PIxels & Miichelle Abau Gabina

Pacific Island New Zealanders are now 90 percent fully vaccinated against Covid-19, and a public health expert is urging them to keep up that momentum in the New Year. In yesterday's daily briefing, the Ministry of Health said 90 percent of eligible Pacific people in New Zealand have now had both vaccines. Dr Collin Tukuitonga from the University of Auckland said that is a tremendous effort and the threat of Omicron is the next challenge. He hopes the community embraces booster shots to guard against the more infectious variant. "It looks as if the two doses doesn't give you enough protection for Omicron, and the most important priority now is to get people to get their boosters as soon as that's possible." He hopes as many regions move into lower levels of restrictions in the government's Framework Protection system people will still stay vigilant, contact trace and get tested. "There's a risk that people might have gone back into a lower level of alertness, so I would hope that we maintain that [alertness]. "In mid-late January I think we're going to have to ramp up once again in respect of rolling out the vaccine for the young ones." Children aged between 5 and 11 become eligible for Covid-19 vaccinations in mid-January, and those 12 and older are already eligible. Tukuitonga said rolling out vaccinations for children could also be a challenge, and parents may need encouragement. "Parents are perhaps less certain about the benefits and more concerned about risks. So every effort is going to be needed to get the vaccination rollout in children up to the kind of levels that is needed." SOURCE: RNZ NEWS

A day after turning 37, LeBron James reminded anyone who needed reminding that the rules of time do not apply to him. Father Time comes for everyone. But not James, who appears to still be evolving. Despite the Los Angeles Lakers’ early season struggles, James has been anything but the problem. On Saturday (AEDT), while playing the centre position, James recorded his seventh straight game with 30+ points in a 139-106 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. James had 27 points at the half, and finished with 43 points, 14 rebounds, and four assists in just 29 minutes as the Lakers started ‘small’ and stayed small, with James playing the five throughout the game. Despite the game being totally out of reach for Portland, James returned in the fourth quarter to pile on some extra misery as he added another seven points before finally sitting. Russell Westbrook tallied a quiet triple-double; 15 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists helping the Lakers cruise to the win. Carmelo Anthony added 16 points off the bench. The Lakers remain below .500 at 18-19 on the season, while Portland dropped to 13-22 after a severely disappointing start to the campaign. DEROZAN AND THE BULLS STAY HOT DeMar DeRozan dropped in a three-point buzzer-beater off one leg to hand the Bulls a 108-106 win over the Indiana Pacers to end a big year for Chicago. The shot saw the Bulls improve to 23-10 on the season; DeRozan and co. now sitting in the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. “For that shot to go in, we were battling that whole fourth quarter, feeling like nothing was going our way on both ends,” DeRozan said after claiming what was the Bulls’ sixth straight win. “We couldn’t get a rebound. We couldn’t get going offensively. It felt like we were getting beat up here and there. So it was a big-time relief for me.” The shot was the second game-winning buzzer beater of DeRozan’s career, according to ESPN, and his first since January 2013. He finished with 28 points and now leads the league in points per game in the fourth quarter. LOVE IS TIMELESS Forgotten star Kevin Love turned back the clock on Saturday despite an understrength Cleveland Cavaliers dropping to a 121-118 defeat to the Atlanta Hawks. Love scored 35 points and added 11 rebounds and four assists off the bench for Cleveland, who got 21 points from Jarrett Allen and another 16 points from rookie Evan Mobley. It wasn’t enough though as Trae Young dropped 35 points and 11 assists, and Clint Capela tallied 18 points and a staggering 23 boards. NBA SCORES PHOENIX SUNS 108 — 123 BOSTON CELTICS CHICAGO BULLS 108 — 106 INDIANA PACERS DALLAS MAVERICKS 112 — 96 SACRAMENTO KINGS MIAMI HEAT 120 — 110 HOUSTON ROCKETS ATLANTA HAWKS 121 — 118 CLEVELAND CAVALIERS LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS 108 — 116 TORONTO RAPTORS SAN ANTONIO SPURS 105 — 118 MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES NEW YORK KNICKS 80 — 95 OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES 108 — 120 UTAH JAZZ SOURCE: FOX SPORTS

As digital calendars around the world changed to 01.01.2022, Microsoft customers found their Exchange servers stopped processing emails. Microsoft says it is aware of a programming flaw which saw some customers' Exchange servers stop processing emails just as the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve. System administrators, who are sharing workarounds on social media, have dubbed the bug Y2K22 - in the style of the Y2K bug which affected some computers at exactly the same time 22 years earlier. Microsoft said its engineers had been "working around the clock on a fix" that wouldn't require customers to fiddle with their on-premise servers to get things moving again, but warned they found this "would require several days to develop and deploy". Instead, those engineers are now working on a different update "which is in final test validation" that will require customer action, but also offer "the quickest time to resolution". What actually went wrong? The technical issue seems to lie with the way that Microsoft was naming updates for its malware-scanning engine, putting the year, month, and day (220101) at the front of another four-digit number (0001). Microsoft seems to use this system because when an update is named "2,201,010,001" it is simple to mathematically check which update is the most recent as it will have the higher value. The problem appears to be that the field this number was stored in had a limit of being 31 bits, meaning the highest number that could be represented was 2,147,483,648 or 2 to the power of 31. As soon as the clock ticked over to 2022, this naming system was going to exceed the maximum value that could be represented in 31 binary symbols. The company hasn't yet confirmed the technical details, but its explanation seems to support the theory: "The version checking performed against the signature file is causing the malware engine to crash, resulting in messages being stuck in transport queues." What problems has it caused? The software update affected is related to Microsoft's anti-malware scanning software, meaning that messages which should be queued up and checked are simply being queued. One managed service provider warned on Microsoft's site that their company had seen a client queue 10,000 messages in less than 24 hours. They said this risked filling up the server's storage and making it crash, potentially taking the business offline. "Don't wait for the Microsoft patch if you are not sure your Exchange Server storage has the capacity to hold all queued messages without filling up disks and crashing," they wrote. "Apply the workaround now to release the messages sooner than later." The problem is the workaround involves disabling the malware filtering feature - potentially exposing companies to hackers. Microsoft warns: "You should use one of these workarounds only if you have an existing malware scanner for email other than the engine in Exchange Server." The Microsoft Exchange team said: "We expect to have this update to you shortly along with the actions required by you. We are sorry for any inconvenience that this issue has caused." SOURCE: SKY NEWS

Prime Minister Hon. James Marape, MP presented a dummy cheque of K10 million, as symbol of funds of the same amount to be remitted to the Manus Provincial Health Authority. The Prime Minister has urged the PHA to use the funds to start the construction of a, separate from the main hospital, 1000 bed isolation and treatment facility for COVID-19 and other Respiratory disease patients. Prime Minister Marape said that funding is separate from the budget K15 million for a new modern hospital facility to be located at good location that people of Manus can reach easily. Manus Provincial Health Authority Chairman Mr. Robert Siwer thanked the Prime Minister for the Funding and the commitment to build a new hospital for the Province. He said the current hospital is about 20 years old and they are maintaining it continuously to keep it running for the people therefore a new hospital is needed.

Former Prime Minister and Ialibu Pangia MP Peter O’Neill has expressed his disappointment in the current James Marape led government saying it has undone years of hard work by his government, and also those before him. O’Neill said economically, the country is in a mess with debt at over K51 billion and no plan to increase income except to tax the people. “Socially, crime and violence in our capital and the regions is out of control. The law is routinely abused and manipulated for political gain,” Mr O’Neill said. “Corruption, nepotism, and greed is worse not better and our economic, health and social unrest has made us a laughingstock in the region.” He said Marape has consistently shown a lack of moral courage, decisiveness and leadership. However he further said with the New Year now, people must look forward to make critical decisions in light of the approaching 2022 National General Elections for a brighter future. “But 2021 will go down not as a year of moving forward but of rapidly going backwards.”

New Year celebrations in the National Capital District recorded nil deaths relating to alcohol consumption or violence apart from a suicide incident and attempted carjacking at Gerehu. Metropolitan Superintendent Gideon Ikumu told PNG Hausbung incidents of drunks causing disturbances and commotions in respective suburbs throughout the city were reported but police responses were swift and prevented further violence. He commended the city residents as well as his police officers for ensuring that this happened unlike in past instances. “All this ensued despite the fact that there was no alcohol ban this festive season,” Mr Ikumu said. “We want the community to celebrate the New Year with us, but within the confines of the law that covers all of us, and that is not to infringe on the rights of others.” “Drunks that were taken by police last night and early hours of the morning were released again at first light after they sobered up.” “My message to both my officers and the public is to build that public-private partnership and that has been delivered during the festive operation and I’m grateful for that.” He further called on the general public in the city to co-operate with police going forward into this New Year.

Thousands of people received a surprise gift on Christmas Day this year when European bank Santander accidentally deposited £130 million ($176 million) across 75,000 transactions. The mistake happened when payments from 2,000 business accounts in the U.K. were processed twice, meaning some employees saw their wages double, while suppliers also got more than they were expecting. The bank said the duplicate payments were caused by a “scheduling issue” that has now been rectified. It is now trying to recuperate the mistaken payments, many of which have gone into bank accounts operated by rival banks. “We’re sorry that due to a technical issue, some payments from our corporate clients were incorrectly duplicated on the recipients’ accounts,” a Santander spokesperson told CNBC. “None of our clients were at any point left out of pocket as a result and we will be working hard with many banks across the UK to recover the duplicated transactions over the coming days.” Reports suggest the incident may have dampened the spirits of some payroll staff on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. “It ruined my holiday period because I thought I’d paid out hundreds of thousands in error — I thought I had done something wrong,” one payroll manager reportedly told the BBC. “I thought it was just me and that I was going to get in trouble at work.” The payroll manager added that Santander hasn’t shared how businesses should explain the second payment to staff or provided any information about how it should be repaid, according to the report. Santander said the process for recovering the funds is an industry process known as the “bank error recovery process.” It added that it has started to work with other banks in accordance with the process and that these banks will look to recover the accidental payments from their customer’s accounts. It said it also has the ability to recover the funds directly from people’s accounts. SOURCE: CNBC NEWS

It was quite a challenge for young all-rounder, Boio, when it came to balancing school and training but he managed the two seemingly with ease. The teen, who has just completed grade 11 at the Port Moresby Grammar School said that was one part of training that was hard for him. ‘It was difficult balancing school and cricket. But I just go to school and after school I join the boys in training.’ ‘Usually the U19 team would train for at least six months, but for us it’s shorter than that.’ As with other countries participating in the ICC U19 Men’s World Cup, the global pandemic has caused the unfortunate short and unconventional time frame for the U19 team to train. However, they have taken on the challenge with guts and grit. ‘We will try our best to represent the country and I look forward to having that challenge with the other U19 teams,’ Boio says adding that he especially looks forward to playing against Pakistan. ‘I love the game itself, enjoying it with my teammates,’ the young cricketer says. ‘I like Vani Vagi Morea; I just love his batting and his games.’ And if it’s not cricket he’s playing or his teammates that he’s with, it’s his family. He absolutely loves going for family picnics. The 18-year-old from Pari, Central Province has been playing since he was ten. And it’s apparent his family were a big part of this. After joining the Pari Cricket Club Boio was soon identified as a young talent in the cricket program, now ready for his World Cup debut. ‘I didn’t think I would make the PIH Under 19 Cricket PNG team but…I’m very proud,’ he smiles. ‘I just want to say thank to the selectors of the PNG U19 team and the Cricket PNG board.’