Matbob delivers maiden ministerial statement

ABG Minister for Community Government, Theonila Matbob, delivered her maiden ministerial statement yesterday in the first session of the Bougainville House of Representatives.

Minister Matbob said her Ministry and department’s plans for this year are aligned to the Toroama-Nisira government’s Six-Point Strategy.

Key legislations that are a priority for the Ministry include the establishment of Nissan and Atolls as the fourth region in Bougainville, the development of the Municipal Authority Bill and collaboration with the Bougainville National MPs to improve ward leaders remuneration packages.

Minister Matbob also announced in parliament an alignment partnership with the National Regional Member’s office to ensure greater visibility of development at the ward level.

“For a long time, the dual system of service delivery that runs parallel between National and ABG has created blurred lines where political leadership has been used for one’s self interest, rather than achieving the common good. As a result, it has created stagnancy in development,” she said.

Minister Matbob called on community governments in Bougainville to ensure all their annual budgets are submitted together with implementation plans and monitoring and evaluation plans. This is so that resources are allocated accordingly, further noting that these plans are to be made accessible to the people to rebuild public trust.

Minister Matbob reported to parliament that through its partnership programs with development partners, a series of training and capacity development programs were rolled out in 2022 for community governments.

“In 2022, DCG rolled out community government training targeting chairs, deputy chairs and ward members in three separate phases (phase 1, 2 and 3). The Australian government supported phase 1 and 2 of this training which targeted chairs and deputy chairs.

“The Community Government Institutional Strengthening Project (CGISP) which is a new modality under the Bougainville Partnership, includes the Community Government Capacity Development (CGCD) and the Ward Development Projects (WDP).

“It is through phase 3 of the DCG training that we hope to include the community government and ward level training for CGISP program with two further levels of training: (i) for all ward members in a CG selected for the CGISP pilot and (ii) for only the ward members of wards which are then selected for WDPs.”

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