2022 Top 10 Richest People in Papua New Guinea

7. John Momis

John Momis is a politician and elected President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. Momis was sworn in as President of Bougainville on June 10, 2010 for a five-year term. He defeated his predecessor, President James Tanis, and five other challengers by a landslide in the 2010 presidential election, in which he was a candidate of the New Bougainville Party.

He was reelected for a second period (2015-2020), in the general elections in May 2015. Momis served as a Catholic priest from 1970 until 1993, becoming active in politics and elected to the assembly in the 1970s.

He was a co-writer of the Constitution of Papua New Guinea and worked to establish a secessionist organization in what was then North Solomons Province. After it was confirmed as a province, he returned to national politics.

Following the end of the civil war, he was appointed as the Governor of Bougainville from 1999 until 2005. He was Papua New Guinea’s ambassador to the People’s Republic of China.

 

8. Belden Namah

Belden Namah is a Papua New Guinean politician and former military officer. He was deputy Prime Minister. In the 1990s, he was an officer in the Papua New Guinea Defence Force, with the rank of captain. He was involved in the aftermath of the Sandline affair in 1997.

In July, he and three other soldiers accompanied Captain Bola Renagi to see newly appointed Prime Minister Bill Skate, following Prime Minister Julius Chan’s resignation under military pressure over the use of mercenaries in the conflict in Bougainville province.

Renagi asked Skate to disband the Special Operations Group, to which the military was hostile. Namah, Renagi and the three other men were arrested and charged with sedition for their approach to the Prime Minister; the public prosecution argued that they had been attempting to obtain a pardon from the government for the military personnel involved in the near-coup of the Sandline affair.

Before entering politics, he was also a businessman, describing himself as being “into the multi-billion-dollar business of logging”.

 

9. Rabbie Namaliu

Sir Rabbie Langanai Namaliu GCL KCMG PC is a Papua New Guinea politician. He served as the fourth Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea from 4 July 1988 to 17 July 1992 as leader of the Pangu Party.

An ethnic Tolai, Sir Rabbie comes from East New Britain. He was educated in Papua New Guinea and in Canada, at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia. Prior to his political career he was an academic in the field of political science at the University of Papua New Guinea.

10. Bob Dadae

Sir Robert Dadae, GCMG is the Governor-General of Papua New Guinea. He assumed office as the tenth Governor-General on 28 February 2017, succeeding Sir Michael Ogio.

He was educated at the Ombo Lutheran Agency in Derim and the Bugandi High School, before completing a B.Com. degree from the University of Papua New Guinea (1988) and MBA degree from Griffith University (1995). Prior to his election to parliament, he was an accountant for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea and a board member of the Christian Press publishing house.

He was elected to the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea at the 2002 election as the United Party member for Kabwum Open, becoming the party’s deputy leader after the election. He became Deputy Speaker in 2004. He was again re-elected at the 2007 election, and served as Minister for Defence under Michael Somare from 2007 to 2011. He crossed to the People’s National Congress after Somare’s 2011 ouster, and was re-elected under that banner at the 2012 election.

He was appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George on 5 May 2017. He was appointed to the Order of St John on 18 August 2017.