A Reshuffle That Rewards: Marape's Pre-Election Cabinet Tells Us Exactly What This Government Values

by MICHAEL J. PASSINGAN

Prime Minister James Marape insists his latest Cabinet reshuffle is "not motivated by politics or General Election 2027." The list itself, published this week, makes that claim difficult to take seriously — and in one appointment, indefensible.

In early 2026, Dr Billy Joseph was removed from the Defence portfolio over allegations of foul play in the PNG Defence Force recruitment process. He was not dropped from Cabinet; he was parked at National Emergency Services while an investigation proceeded, a decision that already drew criticism about whether this Prime Minister disciplines ministers or merely relocates them. Now, with no public account of that investigation's findings, Joseph has been handed Health: one of the largest budgets in government and the portfolio on which more Papua New Guineans' lives depend than any other. If the recruitment allegations have been resolved, the public deserves to see the outcome before the promotion. If they have not, the promotion is the outcome. Either way, the message to serving ministers is unmistakable: scandal is a waiting room, not a consequence.

The same pattern holds elsewhere. Win Daki was suspended from Commerce amid allegations concerning the SME Fund; his replacement, Wake Goi, inherits the portfolio while Daki, too, remains in Cabinet without portfolio. Sideways, never out.

Ministries for everything except reform. The list restores the boutique commodity portfolios this government has favoured since 2023: a Minister for Livestock, a Minister for Coffee, a dedicated minister for PNG Power. Coffee and livestock are legitimate economic priorities, but they are priorities that functioning Agriculture and State Enterprises ministries should deliver. Multiplying ministries multiplies salaries, staff, vehicles and discretionary influence ten months out from a general election. Papua New Guineans are entitled to ask whether these are policy instruments or coalition currency.

What the reshuffle conspicuously does not address is the crisis Marape committed to fixing "at the highest political level." On 13 February 2026, the Financial Action Task Force placed PNG on its grey list. The government endorsed an Action Plan with hard benchmarks: a national risk assessment, a legal-persons risk assessment, and amendments to the AML/CTF Act, the Criminal Code and the UN Sanctions Act, five actions due by the end of September, the same month the National Coordinating Committee must deliver its first progress report to the FATF. Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey concedes PNG needs two more years of disciplined work to exit the list, with 18 of 75 recommended actions still outstanding.

Grey-listing is not an abstraction, it raises the cost and friction of every cross-border transaction, threatens correspondent banking relationships, and tells investors that PNG's institutions cannot police its own money. Exiting it requires exactly what this reshuffle does not signal: strengthened justice, treasury and financial-intelligence coordination, credible prosecutions, and ministers chosen for integrity rather than arithmetic. A Cabinet that finds room for a Coffee Minister but offers no visible reinforcement of the AML/CFT reform machinery has told the FATF, and the country, where its energy is going before 2027.

The Prime Minister says this exercise puts "the right people in the right portfolios." That is precisely the standard against which it fails. A minister under a cloud over defence recruitment now runs Health. A suspended minister keeps his Cabinet seat. Portfolios proliferate while the September FATF deadlines approach. This is not a performance-based reset. It is election-year housekeeping, and the mess has simply been swept into better-paying rooms.