South Bougainville

Member for South Bougainville, Timothy Masiu, issued the call following an armed robbery at Maleai village, in the Solomon Islands on February 5^th.

South Bougainville and Solomon Islands police reported a group of five suspects from Siwai, in South Bougainville, hijacked a banana boat and its skipper at gun point and ordered him to travel to Shortland islands.

There they held up a Chinese businessman at Maleai village, where they robbed him off beche-de-mer, solar panels, 200 litres of fuel, mobile phones and solar batteries.

ABG’s Minister for Community Development Jacob Toke has welcomed the hosting of this important occasion.

The conference which brings together key national and sub-national financial officials seeks to enhance knowledge and understanding of financial management reform and best practices at the sub-national level.

The Minister for Finance, James Marape, and Chief Secretary to the National Government Ambassador, Isaac Lupari, and Secretary for Finance Dr Ken Ngangan are amongst the senior officials from the National and Provincial Treasuries who will attend.

Already, keen investors have lined up with initial plans of tapping into agriculture, fisheries and tourism.

The Bana Free Trade Zone (BFTZ) pilot project will help boost the economy of Bana district, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea as a whole by attracting and concentrating companies in a business focused environment within the BFTZ area with its coast aimed at being a major international corridor.

Member for South Bougainville, Timothy Masiu, presented a part payment cheque of K100,000 of the total funding component to Air Niugini and NAC on Friday for the installation of Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI)/flight lights at Aropa Airport, Kieta, South Bougainville.

Once these lights are installed, Air Niugini would be able to operate jet aircrafts into Aropa Airport.

This airport is one of the oldest airports in PNG and the busiest because of the Bougainville Copper Mine.

Masiu retained his South Bougainville seat after polling 13, 427 surpassing the required majority vote.

Coming in second was PNG Party candidate, Joseph Suwamaru with 9, 659 votes while PNC candidate, Nick Penial polled third with 6, 002 votes.

Returning Officer, John Itanu, told Loop PNG he officially declared Masiu at 9:15 am today.

Masiu joins Namatanai Member-elect, Walter Schnaubelt, as the two latest NA parliamentarians.

Returning Officer John Itanu informed Loop PNG that after the final elimination this morning, the top three are as follows:

A project that had been a dream since independence, it is an eye-opener and a milestone for the South Bougainvillean main centre.

Buin town resident, Jennifer Rangis, told Loop PNG that shop owners and mothers selling items at the roadside markets won’t complain about dust anymore.

“We are now very happy and we would like to thank the authorities for the sealing of Buin town, at least our little lovely town here has now gone into some standard,” Miss Rangis said.

A village chief from the Konnou area of Buin, South Bougainville, told Loop PNG that the awareness for the referendum needs to be more aggressive now.

Joe Patuai said: “There needs to be more funding put into these awareness programs and people need to travel the full length of this island, even into places where service doesn’t go to, awareness has to go.

Masiu had gave K110,000 from his discretionary fund of K250,000 annually to the 11 ABG Members for the Southern Region.

The members include: Torokina, BABA, Lato, Bolave, Kopii, Motuna Huyuno Tokunotui, Ramu, Makis, Baubake, Lule and Konnou.

This is part of Masiu's ongoing support to his fellow ABG MPs in his electorate.

He said unity amongst leadership of South Bougainville is the only way forward.

“As the saying goes....if the elephants clash, the grass suffers thus if the leaders clash the people suffers.”

In a stunning football match that saw two Bougainville teams clash in the finals, the boys from Buka town outran the local village boys to claim the title.

Central Bougainville will now represent Islands region in the Besta Cup Championships to be held in Port Moresby or Lae early next year.

The two teams also took part in the tournament for the first time as most of the players are students and teachers.

Meanwhile, four of their players were selected for the U17 trials that will be held on Tuesday.