Governor backs Papua Land Rights Advocacy Group

Central Province Governor, Robert Agarobe, says he supports the Papua Land Rights Advocacy group for the development of their land, resources, environment and livelihood.

Speaking at a July 10 briefing in the Central Provincial Government headquarters at Konedobu, Port Moresby, Agarobe highlighted that he has submitted a petition to parliament in June last year as drivers for the provincial development goals, in which much of the visions are captured in the petition.

“What I want is an entity or a body to be set up to bring this information to the Parliamentary Select Committee. Let’s put our heads together so we can bring this to the Committee to deliberate on, this is our only opportunity.”

Agarobe added: “Because it’s one of the drives that I am pushing, it will be funded, we are putting resources behind it and so we are trying to establish entities now to collect information and data from everybody else so we can come to a roundtable and discuss and present to the Parliamentary Select Committee.”

He stated that the Provincial Executive Council (PEC) is aware of this, and will endorse it.

He outlined that PEC also endorsed the petition that was presented to parliament but for now, all likeminded people have to sit down and come up with a work plan, terms of reference and put a budget behind it.

“This is going to affect everybody including our future generation so we got to resource it.”

Governor Agarobe also highlighted that agriculture, tourism and sports are the main economic pillars that they plan to achieve. However, from the petition presented to the Parliament, he hopes to have a provincial capital established and internal revenue to drive economic development in Central Province.

He believes Central is the only province that does not have a provincial capital and a revenue base to start from.

“We don’t have a provincial capital, we don’t have a provincial airport, we don’t have a provincial wharf and we don’t have a provincial hospital.”

(Dame Josephine Abaijah making a point during the Papua Land Rights Advocacy Group meeting discussions with Central Governor Robert Agarobe at Konedobu)

Author: 
Press release