Southern Highlands Governor Anderson Agiru’s 2008 budget has been endorsed by the Provincial Executive Council (PEC) and the National Government will give its blessing as required under the Organic Law.
The budget looks impressive and has the ambitious goal of reconstruction and rehabilitation of existing public infrastructure, institutional strengthening and capacity building of the Public Service.
There has been no grandstanding on new ideas and new projects based on assumptions and wild dreams.
The governor is fulfilling one of his key campaign agendas. This has never happened in the past and the Southern Highlands people are looking forward to a better and more prosperous public administration.
However, despite the political will to get the province out of its current mess, the public service machinery needed to deliver on the budget’s aspirations is defunct and dysfunctional.
The National Government needs to assist the Southern Highlands government address the public service crisis in the province. Therefore, a nice looking budget is only paper dressing until and unless the public servants are dealt with.
We are now calling on Agiru and the National Government to seriously review the Southern Highlands public service structure to inject new blood and energy into implementation of this budget.
 

James Suka
Ialibu
SHP.