Top 10 Richest People in Papua New Guinea 2024

4. Peter O’Neill

‘Peter Charles Paire O’Neill, CMG is the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea since 2011. He is born in Lalagam , Pangia , Southern Highlands Province on 13 February 1965.

O’Neill’s father, Brian O’Neill, was an Australian-born magistrate of partial Irish descent. His mother, Awambo Yari, a Papua New Guinean, came from the Southern Highlands. His father moved to Papua New Guinea in 1949 as an Australian government field officer, known in Tok Pisin as a kiap, later serving as a magistrate in Goroka until his death in 1982.

Peter O’Neill spent his first years of his youth in his mother’s village and entered his father’s urban household after going to secondary school. O’Neill was educated at the Pangia Primary School , Ialibu High School and Goroka High School .

After leaving school he obtained a Bachelor’s in Commerce at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) . This was followed by an honors degree in accountancy from UPNG. He obtained a professional qualification and became a Certified Practicing Accountant in 1989.

A year later he became President of the PNG Institute of Certified Practicing Accountants. Peter O’Neill became a partner in Pratley and O’Neil’s accounting firm. He combined this with a substantial number of directorships, often as Executive chairman.

3. Mekere Morauta

Sir Mekere Morauta, KCMG is a Papua New Guinean economist and political figure. Sir Mekere was born in 1946 in Kukipi, a coastal village east of Kerema in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea, and was educated at local primary schools and at Kerema High and Sogeri National High.

He went on to study at the University of Papua New Guinea, where he obtained a Bachelor of Economics in 1970. He was also an exchange student at Flinders University in South Australia.

After graduating from university he worked as an economist in both the public and private sectors. In 1975 he was the first Papua New Guinean to be appointed Secretary of the Department of Finance, a position which he held until 1982.

Other positions he has held include Managing Director of the government’s commercial bank, the Papua New Guinea Banking Corporation (1983–1992), and Governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea (1992–19993), PNG’s central bank. Morauta was also a successful businessman after he retired from governing the central banFrom 1994 to 1997, he was executive chairman of Morauta Investments, Ltd. (Delta Seafoods and Morauta and Associates). After entering politics he withdrew from actively managing the firm and his wife Lady Roslyn Morauta took over the management of the firm. 

Sir Mekere was a member of the so-called “Gang of Four”, a group of influential young civil service chiefs who played a leading role in holding together public administration and public policy in the formative decade or so after Papua New Guinea’s independence in 1975. 

The other members of the group were Charles Lepani, Sir Rabbie Namaliu and Sir Anthony Siaguru. Namaliu also later went on to become Prime Minister. Morauta maintained from that period on a strong professional and warm personal relationship with the Australian economist Ross Garnaut.