Delay

PNGTA president, Aita Sanangkepe informed teachers that the Teaching Service Commission and the PNGTA are yet to sort out the agreement.

According to PNGTA, at numerous occasions the TSC had advised PNGTA that it had made a submission to the Department of Personnel Management (DPM) that teachers would be paid before school resumed in 2023.

However, Sanangkepe said this has not happened. Early this year during the NEB swearing-in ceremony TSC gave the electronic copy of the Salary Fixation Agreement template.

Governor Muthuvel has requested the Forest Minister, Solan Mirism to postpone the signing of the Ania Kapiura Fulleborne Forest Management Agreement (FMA) until all concerns raised by the landowners from Gasmata are addressed.

In a letter addressed to the minister, Governor Muthuvel expressed his lack of understanding of terms like FMA and TRP but emphasized the significance of committing to a 35-year logging agreement without obtaining the full consent of all affected landowners.

Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai said any discussions and talks of failing an election and calling for a Supplementary or a By Election is not on his table and will not happen as costs of running elections have escalated and are expensive.

Candidates Jerry Kiwa, Joe Kobol and Ps Bernard Peter, in a separate press conference in Mt Hagen yesterday, said they have wasted a lot of time and effort already in Mendi and they do not want the counting process to be further delayed.

The candidates pointed out that the Southern Highlands Provincial Seat is no different from other provincial seats.

The formal declaration should have been done already but the former Provincial Returning Officer, Jacob Kurap’s manner in conducting the counting, was not right by declaring the incumbent Governor William Powi.

Kairuku-Hiri Returning Officer, Tabu Vaira, said with the delay in counting of the last two ballot boxes due to administrative issues, they are now running behind schedule.

After the last two boxes are counted, they will then move on to quality checks.

Vaira explained that quality checks will depend on how fast they can go through to make sure that during the eliminations, no informal votes are found.

“Quality checks normally take one to two days but we will have to fast track the process,” he stated.

Election Manager Steven Koupa told Loop PNG this morning that remote areas of Wobura and Luda are yet to cast their votes.

He said since yesterday, they had been waiting for the chopper to airlift ballot boxes.

He added that the delay will affect the schedule for counting.

Koupa also raised concerns that this is a priority area therefore the helicopter firm should make it their priority to airlift the ballot boxes.

Meanwhile, all districts have completed their polling and ballot boxes have been extracted to the police station in Goroka for counting.

The region consists of four districts, Arawa, Panguna, Wakunai and Kieta, and the delay has affected over 40 000 eligible voters.

CBR Returning Officer Denise Palipal confirmed reports received from the voters that many of the names are not on the electoral roll.

Palipal and CBR police commander Spencer Aila urged all 49 polling teams not to carry out polling until the preliminary roll is printed and distributed to them.

Palipal confirmed that they will be using the preliminary roll from the 2012 elections.

He said delays in the processing of payments have caused inconvenience and have been most unfortunate, but progress is being made to prevent a reoccurrence in the future.

“The decision to directly fund foreign missions from Treasury has faced delays in initial implementation but will have long term benefits when problems are resolved,” Minister Pato said.