highlands region

In attendance are Chief Justice Sir Gibbs Salika, his deputy Justice Ambeng Kandakasi, the judges of the National and Supreme court, magistrates and members of the judiciary including lawyers.

Governor for Southern Highlands William Powi, the Defence Minister Dr Billy Joseph and member for Mendi, Raphael Tonpi are in attendance.

For the first time, the legal year is being opened in the district and will be followed by the opening of the National Court House later in the day.

The United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is providing an initial $100,000 (K352,500) in immediate humanitarian assistance to respond to displacement in Papua New Guinea, resulting from election and tribal-related violence, which began in May and continues.

This funding will be used to encourage local solutions that aim to prevent future conflict and build sustainable peace. 

Focusing on Southern Highlands and Hela Provinces, these activities are being implemented in partnership with UNDP and civil society under the United Nations Highlands Joint Programme for Peace and Development. 

This funding will provide communities with access to small grants to rebuild livelihoods and community infrastructure. 

The improved roads system has enabled buyers to go to the grower’s door steps to buy coffee.

Eastern Highlands, Jiwaka and Western Highlands, the three main Arabica coffee growing provinces have benefited from this project.

The 50 kilometers Okapa link is one of nine economic roads costing K28 million.

Coffee growers, Amox Buka, says the improved road system has motivated them to look after coffee tress well and to plant more.

This is the cry of the people from neighbouring Central villages who witnessed what they described as another unnecessary buai incident that disturbed their peace.

According to a villager from west Mekeo, a few days ago, a man from the Highlands region was allegedly killed in Kerema town, Gulf Province, whilst on a buai trade trip there.

Relatives of the man, in busloads, retaliated and attacked people along the highway to Kerema.

A man in Kerema town is reportedly nursing serious slash wounds.

Journalist Freddy Mou witnessed firsthand the volatile situation of elections in the Highlands.

This is his summary of elections in the Highlands.

The campaign period in the Highlands region is always a time to showcase the sort of leaders a tribe has.

This is when pigs, cows and other livestock are slaughtered, with celebrations after celebrations held at various campaign venues by candidates to try and lure voters.

Following the extraction of teams into remote Marawaka on Saturday preparations for counting are underway after polling in parts of Goroka.

Electoral Commissioner, Patilias Gamato says some people have asked to extend polling however they cannot as he is satisfied polling has taken place.

In Southern Highlands, poling began on Saturday.

Some areas reported shortage of ballot papers and they include Kagua Rural (Part B), Ialib Urban (Part B) and Mendi Urban (Part B).

A spokesman said they were ready for Eastern Highlands, Simbu and Hela when polling was scheduled for June 26.

Delay on ground due to candidate grievances and other factors saw polling in some of these areas deferred, therefore the helicopter company left, with clearance from Electoral officials, to attend to other electoral jobs that needed their assistance.

This morning they have sent two helicopters to Eastern Highlands Province and one to Simbu Province to assist in insertion and extractions of polling teams for the remote areas.

Enga regional candidate Robert Pati has called on electoral officials and security personnel deployed to conduct elections in the Highlands region to be on alert.

Pati said this following rumours of ballot papers floating around with some marked as legal and ready to be counted in favour of certain candidates.

Pati said to elect good leaders, the elections must be transparent and violence free.

He highlighted that voters must exercise their democratic rights without ballot papers being hijacked by desperate candidates.

Gamato told media that the funds were managed by Waigani because in the past, there was poor management at the provincial level. 

“A lot of expenditures were committed at the provincial level without control so there is some expenditure that we thought we would control from Waigani.

“We have also released some operational funds to the provinces to get them ready for polling and counting period.

“As far as we are concerned, we released enough funds to start them off with polling while at the same time managing the key expenditure areas,” Gamato said.