Pila Niningi

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Pila Kole Niningi is a Papua New Guinean politician and lawyer who has served as a Member of Parliament for Imbonggu Open. He was first elected in 1997, and after a recount, was declared the winner on 14 August 1998. He briefly served as Minister for Public Services in October 1998 under Prime Minister Bill Skate, but was disqualified from Parliament by a Supreme Court decision on 28 October 1998. He returned to Parliament in 2017, running as an Independent, and was appointed Minister for Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology in the O’Neill-Abel government. On 7 June 2019, he became Minister for Inter-Government Relations in the First Marape Cabinet, a position he holds as of now. Niningi studied law at the University of Papua New Guinea and is affiliated with Pangu Pati, though he ran as an Independent in 2017. In the 2025 New Year Honours, he was named a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for his political service and his work in Papua New Guinea’s legal profession.