Central Province Governor

Central Province Governor, Rufina Peter when delivering her independence message last week, says the Central Provincial Government has allocated funding in this year’s budget to renovate police housing at Tapini and Bereina stations.

She said the Central Provincial Government is looking to embark on a training program for reserve police personnel.

This, the Governor believes will cut down on the cost of maintaining and building housing.

Appointed members of the committee were Provincial Administrator Francis Koaba and Provincial Finance Manager (PFM) Walis Imbal, who were sworn in by Provincial Legal Officer Moses Elkui. Witnesses included Members of Parliament from Rigo, Abau, Goilala, Kairuku and Hiri, who were sworn in, in December 2022. 

Governor Peter told the JPP&BPC members that the role that they will play is very important because in terms of fair representation and distribution of funds that will come in under Provincial Support Improvement (PSIP) is important.

Attending court for disputed returns has set the governor back six-seven months in service delivery.

An elated Governor Peter said, “Yesterday was a day of victory for the people of Central Province a decision had to be made and it was made yesterday, this is because its 6-7 months of going through the court proceedings and that is a long time for work actual development work.”

She acknowledged former governor and election petitioner Robert Agarobe for practicing his democratic right to dispute the election results.

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.”

Governor Agarobe met with the Chief Executive Officers of the five districts recently, and said it was important to know his team and develop a common interest in serving the people of Central Province.

The Central Governor was keen on an open door policy, where any member of the Provincial Management team can talk to him about matters affecting their people, so that change can happen.

He also shared plans of rebranding the province, where any requests or proposals from districts and communities, must come direct from the office of open members only.

He says his people struggle to bring their produce into the city to sell, but this time he plans on cutting off that burden by creating intervention measures at the district level.

This was one of his many agendas highlighted during the official swearing in ceremony of Central Province leaders into the provincial assembly yesterday.

The Central Governor, along with the other 4 national Central province leaders, were officially welcomed to the Central Provincial Assembly.

Disaster is now and must be attended to now, says Central Province Governor, Kila Haoda.

According to him, people wait for months before relief arrives.

“This is a very serious issue…we need to change, we need a better system.

“We must have funds parked on the side all the time for natural disasters so when it strikes, we can quickly attend to it now rather than later (months later).”