Council initiates plan to address woes facing informal sector

THE Consultative, Implementation and Monitoring Council has initiated a strategy to allow those in the informal sectors to raise their problems with the government so that it can assist them.
Senior project officer Jeremiah Wenogo tabled the final draft of the Informal Economy Voice Strategy (2018-2022) during the informal economy sectoral committee meeting in Port Moresby yesterday.
“The strategy specifically addresses the lack of voice in the informal economy to talk about what their issues are, how they can raise that with the government and how the latter can respond,” he said.
“For the government to respond, they need a mechanism (such as an association) where the response can be filtered through.”
Wenogo said this was important so that they could address the different issues they faced.
“For example, we hear a lot about the petty crimes and issues at the Gordon market, where vendors get assaulted by police every time a petty crime issue surfaces,” he said.
He said in this type of situation, the National Capital District Commission could assist the vendors if they had a well-established association.
“They are citizens who also pay taxes.
“So they need to be recognised because if we empower them, they can fight for themselves,” Wenogo said.
Wenogo said the government could not help because the informal sector groups were working in isolation.
Department of Community Development, Youth and Religion Secretary Anna Solomon said they needed to get the strategy endorsed quickly so it could be implemented.