By Post-Courier

Copyright postcourier

It is not often that one turns 50 years old.

For Papua New Guinea, it just did that. It was on September 16, 1975 when PNG became an independent nation state among the world of nations.

It was Prince Charles then, now King Charles III, who represented his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, who was our Head of State, at our celebrations 50 years ago.

This week, the King’s youngest brother, His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Edward, flew in from England to join us celebrate our golden jubilee

His Royal Highness has returned home, with fond memories, we are sure of that.

We had other visitors from Europe, the United States, Japan, China, Indonesia and many more who arrived at our shores to join in our celebrations. Off course our southern neighbours, New Zealand and Australia joined us in the celebrations.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese led a strong ministerial delegation to PNG where he signed a new defence deal with PNG and presented a gift to PNG, in the form of an extension to the Parliament House.

As we wind down the celebrations, we want to thank everyone for making time to be here with us to celebrate this milestone achievement. Many people thought we would disintegrate into mini states due to our diversity, and yet we remained intact, as one nation for that long, we have remained a democracy for that long, a rare feat among developing countries in the world today.

Yes, we had good reasons to celebrate and thank you for gracing us with your company.

The three-day celebrations were peaceful. We did not encounter any hiccups along the way. We like to extend a sincere thank you to our people and the hard-working members of our disciplinary forces for keeping the peace.

Finally, we want to acknowledge and thank Prime Minister James Marape, his government and all those people behind the government who planned and executed the program for the excellent celebrations.

Thank you all.