No change in status of people in SHP: Survey

THERE has been no significant change in the socio-economic status among the people of Southern Highlands province, a 2000 demographic survey showed.
Provincial administrator William Powi revealed this at a consultative implementation monitoring council Highlands regional forum in Goroka last week.
Mr Powi said this was due to years of neglect and poor leadership that contributed to the present state of the province.
In a presentation, Mr Powi said the health of the Southern Highlands women and children were not improving, resources were limited, accessibility to basic Government services was inadequate, infrastructure was deteriorating and management was inefficient.
He said the standard of education was very poor, resulting in a declining academic performance of the students.
Mr Powi said they started experiencing management and governance problems in 1992 and that the National Government had been aware of the problems ever since.
He said this was due to political instability and the constant change of the provincial administration which eventually led to the declaration of the State of Emergency (SoE) last year.
Mr Powi said the consequences were the breakdown of law and order, gross abuse of authority at all levels, illegal occupancy of State assets, houses and vehicles, dual employment of senior public servants, breakdown of governance and leadership, corruption and budgets being unrealistic.
“Because of these, the province has been declared malfunctioning by the National Government last year resulting in the declaration of the State of Emergency.”
Mr Powi said the only way forward for Southern Highlands province was to have a corporate plan that focuses on the Government’s seven medium-term development strategic directions.

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