kerema

Being the provincial capital,  Kerema has suffered from prolonged outages due to its power station breaking down.

PNG Power recognized the need for reliable power supply for local businesses, schools, hospitals, and residents, especially with the pending development of the Papua LNG Project.

The generator has already been installed in Kerema and the PNG Power technical team will commission it in December. This generator will provide power until the start of the construction of a DFAT-supported solar project in 2024.

The cause of the power outage is due to a mechanical fault to a PNG Power generator that has taken this long to fix. 

PPL Kerema Manager, Dos Ipanda in March had assured town residents that the generator was experiencing faults due to damaged engine parts; and PPL would make purchase of the spare parts abroad.

Since then the power blackouts still continues into the month of June, as town residents don’t know when power will be restored.

The allocation of K50,000 by the Rubber Board to support farmers in Gulf Province is confidence in the work done so far since 2017.

Rubber industry complemented the coconut and copra industry as early as 1920s and took off in many provinces as a plantation and estate crop in Central, Gulf, Oro, Morobe, Western, Sepik etc.

“In recent times, we had production falling due to policy intervention and lack of support, whilst plantations sector affected by exit of big operators such as Steamships and Burns Philip etc 

Presiding officer for Kerema Urban, Jerry Hape suspended polling for wards 3, 4 and 5 today and told the voters to go check out their names at the Electoral Office.

Provincial Electoral Manager, Poevare Tore made an announcement to the Kerema public this morning to check the Electoral Roll before they argue with the polling team. 

Tore said, “We had officers sent around to register your household four months ago and it shouldn't be a problem to raise during the polling period.”

The first arrest was carried out on 2 February in NCD, which saw Luke Damu from Wowobo village, Kikori District, get charged with:

• One count of official corruption
• One count of false pretence
• Four counts of making documents without authority
• Two counts of conspiracy to defraud
• One count of offering bribery and
• One count of misappropriation of K274,250.28 belonging to Gopera Investment Ltd

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.

“We are trying to work towards counting on Saturday,” says Returning Officer Ronney Havenggau.

He revealed to Loop PNG that some parts of Kikori district are still polling.

Factors that have hindered polling in Gulf include bad weather, transport issues with choppers and the late dispatching of materials.

Returning Officer for Kerema Open Electorate, Ronney Havenggau, described to Loop PNG the atmosphere of the campaign period as being very peaceful since the start of the election process in April.

Havenggau confirms that the Electoral Commission office in Kerema Town has received its polling kits comprised mostly of the non-sensitive items.

Sensitive polling materials, like the ballot paper, ink rolls and candidate posters, will most likely arrive sometime next week.

Gulf Province has only two main electorates with a total of 151 wards.

Deputy Health Secretary, Dr Paison Dakulala, said this in Kerema during a World TB Day program.

He said Gulf has one of the highest TB case notification rates along with the National Capital District and Western Province.

“Case notification for the 12-month period from April 2015 to March 2016 was 767 per 100,000,” he said.

“This rate is more than double the estimate of national incidence for PNG.”

The recent World TB Day brought together partners in Kerema to discuss the Gulf Province’s TB Emergency Response Strategy: 2016–2018.

TB officer Akita Korua says the purpose of the awareness was to educate the people on TB, a curable disease that can be treated with medication if patients are faithful and complete their medication within 6 - 8 months.

The World TB Day event was launched in Kerema town on Friday with the theme for this year, ‘Leave no one behind’, a call to everyone to take ownership of initiatives to stop TB in Gulf Province.