By Adelaide Sirox Kari – EMTV News, Port Moresby
For five years, two districts in Madang Province have had no presence of Public Servants or District Administration. The finding astounding the National Planning Minister Richard Maru during his recent visit the Middle Ramu and Rai Coast Districts.
The Minister for National Planning Richard Maru and Governor Peter Yama met to discuss a way forward for Madang Province.
While the issue of the public service machinery is non-existent in government districts, it is not isolated to Madang alone, the National Planning Minister after his recent visit to Aiome station in the Middle Ramu district was apparently shocked to find no governments services and Public Servants in the last five years.
“The Government is very concerned that two districts in Madang have no public servants. One is the Middle Ramu district where public servants have deserted the district headquarters of Aiome and have been operating from Madang for the past five years. It’s the same situation with Rai Coast where the district station has been deserted for Madang. This is totally unacceptable. The Members, the Governor and the National Government have to work together to implement a plan to bring back public servants back to those districts,” Minister Maru said.
Governor Yama gave assurance the Public servants will return to the districts as the Provincial Administration was made aware of the direction to have all public servants and functions of the District Administration return to Aiome Station and Saidor station.
The reasons for public servants leaving the district was due to poor housing, no electricity and water. Minister Maru announcing that a Special Support Grant (SSG) of K9 million will be made available next month to assist the Provincial Government to rebuild the districts. The funding already appropriated in the 2019 Budget.
A further K5 million will be released to the PNGDF as the engineering Battalion is working on improving the road conditions into the district.
The Governor said the stations will see Public Servants and government services return to Aiome and Saidor within 3 months.
