The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Events and Member for Moresby South has pledged to help those affected by the unrest last week Wednesday, by standing together in solidarity to assist the business community rebuild from the ashes.
Minister Justin Tkatchenko said he pledges to stand together with his people and the National Capital District (NCD) Governor Powes Parkop to assist to rebuild what had been destroyed and put back vital services that will be desperately needed by the people into the near future.
For the member, he mentioned that personally it was a sad day to see Moresby South go up in flames, stating that it was appalling and pathetic.
“These actions of those looters and civilians is going to cause innocent Papua New Guineas of Moresby South great despair and grievance and harm over the next months and years ahead.”
He added that not only have they destroyed the shops people get their groceries from every day, but they have left a sour taste in the mouths affecting thousands of people.
“Good, honest and hardworking people have now lost their jobs because of the total blatant misuse of power by other selfish individuals and others. Now we have got an issue where not only have we lost most of our outlets that are our sources of food supply and services to our people, how are we now going to sustain our communities for the months and years ahead?”
Tkatchenko said these buildings and infrastructure would take time and maybe years to rebuild and restock, and most business houses now do not want to come back and rebuild again.
“I want to move forward now, there is no time to waste on the blame game, other than that this was total stupidity and lack of thinking and that we must learn from these mistakes, from what has happened and make sure this never ever happens again.”
He said he will do his best to work with all communities, the government, the enforcement agencies and the governor and the National Capital District Commission (NCDC) to not only clean up the city and get to back to where it was before, but also to restore calm and peace and order back into the communities and assist those genuine hardworking, honest, trust worthy loyal Papua New Guineans that have lost their jobs from the greed and self-interest of others.
“It’s not going to be easy, but we must all work in partnership together, this is not about politics anymore but about getting our services back to our people that truly deserve it. As your member now, I will be there to support our Governor and the government under Prime Minister James Marape, to assist the business community to rebuild what we can as soon as possible to get our people back employed again that have lost their jobs, and to put vital services back in place that have been destroyed.”
He said they have to work with police for normalcy to be restored and to get communities back on track so that we can clean up the mess that everybody has created and put us in.