The Morobe Governor and newly appointed Chairman of the new Bipartisan Committee to look into provincial government systems, Luther Wenge, aims to achieve the goals of the government to identify a workable system that would be implemented at the provincial levels to achieve development goals.
Speaking during his official appointment as Chairman, Wenge thanked the Minister for Provincial Government and Local Level Government Affairs, Soroi Eoe for having faith in his leadership and appointing him as Chairman. Wenge vows to work towards achieving the government’s goal on reforming provincial government systems.
“I shall do my best with intellectual ability and with the experience as a governor for fifteen years. I as a leader will chair this very important bipartisan committee to deliver in consistence with the Terms of Reference what this committee is required to do for this country,” said Mr. Wenge.
The reason for his show of commitment is because of the current situation faced by the people in the remote and the remotest parts of the country, whom services and development has not reached for the past 40 years because of no roads, bridges, airstrips and even proper wharfs.
Governor Wenge pointed out that as a government, it must answer the cries of its people but the Organic Law on Provincial Governments, which said to deliver services to those areas, is not really working effectively as expected, even though the law was in motion since 1995.
It is for this reason that the Bipartisan Committee was established on the back of the Governors’ Conference earlier this year in Port Moresby. The aim was for politicians, provincial administration teams, and departmental heads and experts to put their heads together to identify loopholes in the current laws and come up with recommendations for changes that would give more power to the provincial governments to deliver on the services and developments for their people.
The whole idea is to decentralize powers from the national level, where it is deemed proper for the provincial level to perform them.
Meanwhile, the new Bipartisan Committee consists of Members of Parliament, departmental professionals and provincial teams who will work together to achieve the Terms of Reference listed for the Committee to go by in their work to review the currently provincial government systems.