An awareness on current situation faced in Madang province was conducted at Yawar Local level government by the Madang Provincial Government.
Executive Officer Ricky Mombi and Project Coordinator Sam Uyagaum visited the people of Iabu of Manam Island who now reside in the Potzdam Care Centre and Mambuan village in Yawar LLG, Bogia District.
The issues of the provincial government and administration highlighted and discussed to the people were;
- Madang Governor’s election petitions
- Administrative matters
- Eviction and related risks to indigenous Madang people
Project awareness conducted by Mr Uyagaum were about SME and scholarship opportunities.
According to the officers, it was imperative that they carried out this awareness as most of the time, villagers in rural areas do not have the luxury of accessing information whether online, newspapers or through broadcast due to their remote locality.
Most times they also don’t have the time to call into the Governor’s office or seek information from officers which sometimes amount to them receiving wrong or misleading information from hearsay.
Mr Mombi clarified to the people of Manam and Mabuan that there are issues within the administration that is being sorted by the provincial government. He appealed to the people for patience as these agenda may take time and cannot be cleared overnight.
He also explained the reason behind the holdup of projects, which is due to bad administration. A financial report for the last 5 years under the former provincial government is yet to be submitted.
Further to the delay in overseeing the lift off of projects, Governor Pariwa since been declared has had three election petitions. Two of these have been dismissed and so far, trials are over and done recently with one decision still pending for December 12th.
On that same note, Mr Mombi told locals to take precaution when moving in and out of town as eviction will commence soon.
Meantime, project coordinator Mr Uyagaum also indicated to the people that the provincial government has budgeted for SME projects for agriculture, youth, women, general and Manam Islanders.
Manam Islanders are the Province’s internally displaced people and it was for their empowerment. K5 million will be will be injected into the National Development Bank for all to access, with each sector receiving K1 million each.
In addition the Sir Peter Barter Tertiary Education Scholarship Program was prioritized this year and launched with partial funding being transferred to respective institutions. However, the final payment has not been released as the provincial administrator yet to sign the warrants, which has affected students and parents.
The people were grateful for an awareness being carried out and appreciated first-hand information given to them by officers from the Governor’s office.